FRIDAY, 3.30PM
KENYAN police on Friday arrested 10 Rwandans, including a former prime minister, on genocide charges related to the 1994 civil war in Rwanda.
Seven of the arrests were confirmed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, northern Tanzania. The arrests in the Kenyan capital came two days after a visit to Nairobi by Rwandan vice-president and defence minister Paul Kagame, which was seen as patching up relations strained since the end of Rwanda’s civil war in July 1994.
Those arrested included Jean Kambanda, who was prime minister in the hardline Hutu government during the four-month war, in which Hutu extremists slaughtered more than 500 000 men, women and children before being defeated by an army of rebel Tutsis under Kagame’s command.
Many senior Rwandan officials found refuge in Kenya, whose President Daniel arap Moi had been a close friend of Rwandan Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana. The Rwandan leader died when his plane was shot down over Kigali on April 6, 1994, precipitating the genocide in Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi.
It is believed those arrested have already been transported from Nairobi to Arusha. They will be lodged in a specially built prison there while awaiting trial, and will face sentences up to life imprisonment if found guilty.