Uganda facilitated a prominent wanted fugitive for genocide offenses in Rwanda to return to Belgium on Wednesday, journalists report.
An inquiry found that Ugandan officials first intervened when Interpol detained Anastase Munyandekwe in Kampala, the capital, and secured his release.
In January 2019, Munyandekwe arrived in Uganda using a Belgian passport.
Interpol had arrested him on the basis of a standing red notice, only for the Ugandan authorities to intervene before facilitating his travel back to Belgium.
Last night, according to credible sources, he flew from Entebbe International Airport.
Munyandekwe, a fugitive from the judiciary of Gacaca who was convicted of his role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, has been on the Interpol Red Notice for almost 12 years.
Munyandekwe was a senior member of the extremist MDR-Power group and was born in 1950 in Mburi cell, Rwamweru area in the former Kinyamakara commune in the former Gikongoro prefecture.
He was MDR-Power leader in the former prefecture of Gikongoro, but he lived in Rugunga cell, Biryogo sector in the capital city of Kigali during the genocide.
He served as Head of the Post Office’s Department of Research and ICT (Etude et Informatique dans l’Office) at the former Ministry of Transport and Communication (Minitransco).
Evidence collected during inquiries in the Biryogo sector as well as in the districts of Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru showed that Munyandekwe was involved in the killings.
He was found guilty of direct and public incitement to commit genocide and was eventually convicted to life in prison in absentia by the tribunal of Biryogo Gacaca.
Munyandekwe, who has obtained Belgian citizenship since then, was subsequently placed on the wanted list of Interpol.
Reasons for the latest trip to Uganda by Munyandekwe remain unclear, but he has made several visits to the country before, even as he was a wanted person.
Details of his travel history indicate that for his recent journey on January 9, 2019, he arrived at Entebbe International Airport at 10:31pm using Belgian passport No. EN736469. On September 12, 2018, he had last toured Kampala, leaving on October 28, 2018.
Weeks earlier, however, the genocide fugitive was detained in Kampala for his role in the genocide in Rwanda under Interpol notice, before officials intervened and secured his release, according to reliable sources.
“He will be leaving Kampala at the earliest opportunity,” a source said before the fugitive left Kampala.
Ugandan officials subsequently made it easier for the fugitive of genocide to leave the neighboring nation and return to Belgium on Wednesday this week, reliable sources verified.
“It’s a shame that someone who goes around claiming to be a Pan-Africanist sends a genocidaire who committed crimes on the African continent to a Western country instead of helping to bring him to justice,” said a Kigali-based analyst. “Survivors and victims of Munyandekwe’s crimes will be disappointed in Museveni’s government action.”
A copy of the travel history of Munyandekwe reveals that since July 2011, Munyandekwe has visited Uganda at least six times.
Munyandekwe continued to work with the forces that committed the genocide after the genocide, going as far as assuming high-profile positions in FDLR ranks. FDLR is an offshoot of ex-FAR, Interahamwe militia and other extremist elements that committed the genocide that killed more than a million persons.
Munyandekwe, in specific, served in 2004 as the spokesman for the Murwanashyaka FDLR party.
Ignace Murwanashyaka, who died in April this year from Germany, was arrested in 2009 before a German tribunal found him guilty of several charges, mainly related to his role in DR Congo’s FDLR atrocities. FDLR has been listed as a terrorist organization for a long time. When he passed away, he was still in prison.
According to a testimony given by Straton Musoni, once vice-president of the FDLR and tried alongside Murwanashyaka, at a tribunal in Stuttgart, Germany, Munyandekwe was removed from his role as spokesman for embezzling US$ 29,000 from FDLR coffers to purchase a taxi in Brussels.
On October 9, 2007, Munyandekwe was first put on the wanted Interpol list for crimes committed in Rwanda between April 6-July 19, 1994.
According to the National Public Prosecution Authority, Uganda is one of the nations with the biggest amount of sought-after suspects of genocide, with the neighbor of Rwanda having earlier facilitated the journeys of Ignace Murwanashyaka of the FDLR in violation of a standing UN embargo.
Kampala has also been earlier charged with issuing Ugandan passports for wanting suspects of genocide and FDLR emissaries to ease their motion within and outside the region.
Earlier this year there was evidence that the Ugandan government also issued passports to members of the RNC, including Charlotte Mukankusi, the head of diplomacy of the dissident group.
RNC is a terrorist outfit led by wanted Rwandan fugitive Kayumba Nyamwasa based in South Africa and is responsible for grenade attacks that claimed the lives of at least 17 people and injured hundreds of others between 2010 and 2014, mainly in the capital Kigali.
Testimonies from arrested rebel leaders— including FDLR spokesman Ignace Nkaka, alias LaForge Fils Bazeye, and intelligence chief Lt Col Jean Pierre Nsekanabo — stated that Uganda was facilitating talks between RNC, FDLR and other anti-Rwandan organizations to join hands in destabilizing Rwanda. Congolese security arrested the two on their way from a conference in Kampala with RNC operatives. A Ugandan cabinet minister Phelomon Mateke attended the meeting.
A UN report published last December revealed that Uganda was a main recruiting source for Rwandan rebel groups based in eastern DR Congo.
In Uganda, hundreds of Rwandans were also illegally detained and tortured, sparking a diplomatic line that saw Kigali issue a travel advisory to Uganda.
After a mini-regional meeting in Luanda, Angola and DR Congo provided to assist broker talks to end the crisis previously this month.