German prosecutors arrested a German-Rwandan national on suspicion of being an accomplice to genocide and 25 counts of murder during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, they said in a statement on Wednesday.
The suspect, identified only as Innocent S under German privacy rules, is accused of ordering the deaths of 25 Tutsis on five separate occasions while serving as an assistant to the mayor of Kayove in northwestern Rwanda.
In one instance, the suspect is accused of personally taking part in the killing by stabbing a victim in the chest with a knife, the prosecutors said.
The suspect, who was arrested in the central German state of Hesse, also used his position to incite the extermination of Tutsis in his town and had death lists drawn up, they added.
A request for comment from defence lawyers representing the suspect was submitted to state prosecutors, who did not immediately respond.
Universal jurisdiction
Germany has prosecuted several suspects linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows courts to try certain grave international crimes regardless of where they were committed.
The case of Innocent, who has been in Germany since the early 2000s, is similar to that of Onesphore Rwabukombe, a former mayor in Rwanda who was handed a life sentence by a German court in 2015 for aiding in the 1994 genocide.
Rwabukombe’s case remains one of Germany’s most notable Rwanda genocide prosecutions and serves as an important precedent for current German investigations.
More than 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were systematically massacred in the East African nation by Hutu extremists over roughly 100 days from April to July 1994.
The UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the first ever tribunal to deliver verdicts related to genocide, indicted 93 individuals, 62 of whom were sentenced, in the roughly two decades that it operated.
- German prosecutors arrested Innocent S, a German-Rwandan national, for allegedly aiding genocide and 25 counts of murder during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
- Innocent S, assistant to the mayor of Kayove, is accused of ordering killings of Tutsis on multiple occasions and personally stabbing a victim.
- He used his official position to incite extermination and created death lists targeting Tutsis in his town.
- The arrest follows Germany’s application of universal jurisdiction, allowing prosecution of severe international crimes committed abroad.
- The case parallels previous German prosecutions like the life sentence of former Rwandan mayor Onesphore Rwabukombe for genocide involvement.
