General Karenzi Karake, who
is the head of Rwanda’s intelligence service, was detained on a European Arrest
Warrant (EAW) at Heathrow Airport on Saturday by Scotland Yard officers acting
on a Spanish indictment accusing him of organising attacks that led to
thousands of deaths following his comrades’ intervention to halt the 1994
genocide of 800,000 people.
The Rwandan authorities - and former International Development
Secretary Andrew Mitchell - condemned Gen Karake’s detention. Louise
Mushikiwabo, Rwanda’s foreign minister described the arrest of the general, who
it is understood has been a regular visitor to London despite being the subject
of an EAW since 2008, as an “outrage”.
But the lawyer acting for relatives of three Spanish aid workers
killed in the massacres told The
Independent investigators
had built a comprehensive case against the general and 38 other Rwandan officials
for crimes including the alleged murders of two British nationals in the
aftermath of the genocide.
The Spanish
indictment names Chris Mannion, a British Catholic missionary shot dead in
1994, and Graham Turnbull, an aid worker and observer with the UN High
Commission for Refugees killed in 1997, among foreign nationals who were
targeted alongside thousands of Rwandan Hutus in the aftermath of the genocide,
during which ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred wholesale by Hutu
extremists.
Gen
Karake, 54, who has been remanded in custody pending extradition to Spain, was
head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of the Tutsi-led Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) which invaded to bring a halt to the mass murder in 1994.
But he is accused by a Spanish judge of then playing a key role in a subsequent
campaign to tighten the RPF’s grip on power by attacking fleeing Hutus and aid
workers.
Jordi
Palou-Loverdos, who is representing the Spanish victims, said: “The evidence is
that General Karake was himself involved in the organisation of these killings
- of Rwandans, Congolese, Spanish, Britons and others - as the head of the DMI
between 1994 and 1997.
“There
was a targeting of missionaries and in 1997 of foreign aid organisations,
including UN agencies, to force them to leave western Rwanda, where most of the
killings were happening. We have many protected witnesses who have said very,
very clearly that the instructions for this came from the top [of the DMI].”
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Scotland
Yard declined to say whether it had investigated Gen Karake in connection with
the deaths of Mr Mannion or Mr Turnbull, which at the time were blamed on Hutu
militias trying to destabilise the RPF government led by President Paul Kagame,
who was previously feted by the West but is now widely criticised as
autocratic. Mr Kagame counts former Prime Minister Tony Blair among his
supporters.
Senior figures in
the Rwandan government reacted with barely-concealed fury to the arrest of Gen
Karake, who is currently director general of Rwanda’s National Intelligence and
Security Services (NISS), equivalent to the combined head of Britain’s MI5 and
MI6.
Williams
Nkurunziza, the Rwandan high commissioner to the UK, told the BBC: “We take
strong exception to the suggestion that he’s being arrested on war crimes. Any
suggestion that any of our 40 leaders are guilty of crimes against humanity is
an insult to our collective conscience.”
Mr
Mitchell, who worked closely with Mr Kagame and his government while in office,
cast doubt on the accuracy of the Spanish indictment, which was
criticised in leaked American diplomatic cables, and said the allegations had
arisen from supporters of Rwanda’s previous genocidal regime.
He
said: “These are politically motivated. They are not about justice, they are
about politics. Let’s be very clear, they are being pursued by supporters of
the genocidal regime which murdered up to one million people in Rwanda.”
The detention of
Gen Karake, known by the nickname of KK, is politically difficult for Britain,
which has been a close ally of Rwanda and is its single largest donor of
international aid. A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said that the
arrest was arrest was an “operational matter” for police.
While
many suspected genocide suspects have been arrested abroad, including four men
in Britain currently awaiting extradition, it is thought that the general is
the first RPF figure to be detained on charges relating to the genocide.
Relations
between London and Kigali have deteriorated in recent months following the
broadcast of a BBC documentary which examined claims that the 1994 genocide was
provoked by Mr Kagame and the Tutsi death toll exaggerated. The Rwandans
accused the BBC of genocide denial and subsequently banned its broadcasts in
Rwanda.
Both
supporters and pursuers of the general expressed surprised at the timing of the
arrest of the spy chief, who is understood to have been in Britain at least
half a dozen times since the issuing of the EAW on behalf of a Spanish judge in
2008.
The Independent understands that the Metropolitan Police may have acted to
arrest Gen Karake, who had been in London for a week, following an approach
from a campaign group, the Global Campaign for Rwandan Human Rights. Rene
Mugenzi, the head of the group who was previously formally warned by the Yard
that he was the target of a potential assassination by Rwandan agents, said:
“It is a huge relief that Karake has been detained. It is hopefully the
beginning of a process that will lead to justice for thousands of Rwandans.”
The
Spanish authorities said they were in the process of forwarding the necessary
documentation concerning Gen Karake’s alleged crimes to London ahead of a full
extradition hearing at a future date.
Mr
Palou-Loverdos said he did not know what had persuaded the British authorities
to act last week on the EAW. He said: “I think I would say it is better late
than never. We do not know what happens behind the scenes.”
The British victims
Chris Mannion, 43, missionary
When
a request came from the Rome headquarters of Mr Mannion's missionary order -
the Marist Religious Institution - to travel to Rwanda to come to aid of his
confreres caught in the tumult of the 1994 genocide, he did not hesitate. The
British-born missionary was heading for the small Catholic mission of Save in
southern Rwanda under escort from a detachment of French peacekeepers on 1 July
1994. But when the vehicle carrying the French soldiers got stuck in mud, Mr
Mannion and colleague went ahead. Their vehicle was attacked by unidentified gunmen
and both men were killed. His colleagues said he had paid with his life so his
fellow missionaries could survive.
Graham Turnbull, 34, aid worker
A
longstanding aid worker, Mr Turnbull was part of a group of four workers with
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees working close to Rwanda's
border with the Democratic Republic of Congo when their vehicle was ambushed on
4 February 1997. Even by the standards of the violence that had convulsed
Rwanda, the attack was brutal. Mr Turnbull was shot dead while a Cambodian
colleague was beheaded with a machete. The attack led to the temporary
withdrawal hundreds of UN and other NGO workers from western Rwanda and is now
alleged in the Spanish indictment to have been orchestrated by the Rwandan
government to conceal revenge attacks on Hutus.
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