Désiré Munyaneza case: Quebec's Court of Appeal upholds conviction for
his role in Rwandan genocide
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
By Sue Montgomery, GAZETTE JUSTICE REPORTER
Twenty years after participating in Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which
close to a million people were brutally slaughtered in just 100 days,
Désiré Munyaneza remains in Millhaven Institution, serving a life
sentence.
Photographed by:., Gazette files
In the fourteen years since Canada adopted its Crimes Against Humanity
and War Crimes Act, only two people have been tried under the law and
of those, one convicted.
On Wednesday, Quebec's Court of Appeal upheld that conviction, meaning
Désiré Munyaneza, a key participant in Rwanda's genocide, will
continue to serve out his life sentence at Millhaven Institution.
The second person tried under the law, former Rwandan school teacher
Jacques Mungwarere, was acquitted in Ontario Superior Court last year.
"It's not a very impressive record," said Payam Akhavan, former United
Nations prosecutor at The Hague.
But the problem, says Akhavan, an international law professor at
McGill University, is the Canadian justice department lacks resources
to deal with hundreds of cases that could be prosecuted under the war
crimes law. These cases, he noted, are cumbersome and costly.
Munyaneza's trial, for example, cost an estimated $1.6 million before
it even went to appeal. Police investigators had to travel to Rwanda,
witnesses had to be brought here for the trial, and part of the trial
took part in France, Belgium and Rwanda.
"The preferred instrument seems to be using immigration law to deport
these people," Akhavan said.
Two years ago, Léon Mugesera was finally sent to stand trial in his
native Rwanda after almost 20 years of fighting deportation from
Canada. At the time, Jason Kenney, then immigration and citizenship
minister, said there were more war criminals in Canada headed for
deportation.
He referred to the Canada Border Services Agency's controversial Most
Wanted list, posted online in 2011, with mug shots of people ordered
deported because they've either been convicted of a crime here, are
believed to have committed a crime elsewhere, or are suspected war
criminals.
In 2010-2011, the last year for which statistics are available, the
CBSA had removal orders for 199 people believed to have committed or
been complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide,
according to its website. That's more than double the number just two
years earlier.
Kyle Mathews, senior deputy director of the Montreal Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, understands
cost and time restrictions in prosecuting people here, but it's
important that impunity not be tolerated.
"I think they should face justice where the crimes were committed but,
at the same time, the justice system (in those countries) doesn't
necessarily work," he said.
At the very least, the law in Canada sends a message to those hoping
to find a safe haven in Canada that "there will be someone looking
over their shoulder," Mathews said.
"I would like to see more prosecution but at least we have these laws
on the books and that's better than nothing."
After a 22-month trial, Munyaneza was convicted five years ago by a
judge alone in Quebec Superior Court. In April 2013 it went to appeal.
On Wednesday, Munyaneza's defence lawyer, Richard Perras, said he will
study the 79-page appeal judgment before deciding whether to apply to
the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal. But given this is the
first conviction under the relatively new law, it will likely be
appealed to the highest court in the land.
Perras has until Aug. 6 to apply for leave to appeal.
His client, he said, "is not a happy camper but he's got to live with it."
Munyaneza was one of the key coordinators and participants of the
systematic extermination of the Tutsi ethnic group and politically
moderate Hutus, and "intentionally killed Tutsi, seriously wounded
others, caused them serious physical and mental harm, sexually
assaulted many Tutsi women and generally treated Tutsi inhumanely and
degradingly," according to the Superior Court judgment against him.
The father of two claimed refugee status in Canada in 1997. His claim
was dismissed in September 2000 and twice again on appeal but he was
never given notice of his pending deportation, probably because by
then, Canada's war crimes unit of the Justice Department was on to
him.
Mungwarere, by comparison, came to Canada in 2001 as a refugee
following the Rwandan slaughter. He was arrested in 2009 in Windsor,
Ont., after an RCMP investigation that began in 2003.
smontgomery@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: MontgomerySue
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