British Man Helped Organise Rwandan Genocide, Court Told

A British citizen was personally involved in organizing the deaths of thousands of people during the Rwandan genocide, a London court heard yesterday.

Vincent Bajinya, 46, came to Britain after the 1994 genocide which claimed more than a million lives as inter-ethnic strife ripped through the central African nation. Dr Bajinya is one of four men facing extradition from Britain to Rwanda under a special diplomatic deal reached last year by the two governments.

Yesterday the four, who deny the charges against them, began their battle against extradition at Westminster magistrates court in London, as it heard of their alleged links to mass murder.

The court heard that Dr Bajinya is wanted in Rwanda for organizing murderous militias and is considered a "category one offender". Bajinya, of Islington, north London, appeared alongside Charles Munyaneza, 49, a cleaner from Bedford; Celestin Ugirashebuja, 54, from Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex; and Emmanuel Nteziryayo, 45, of Manchester, at the start of a week-long extradition hearing before district judge Anthony Evans.

Dr Bajinya, who changed his name to Dr Vincent Brown by deed poll on becoming a British citizen last year, is accused of being a militia organizer in the Rwandan capital Kigali at the time of the brutality. The other three were allegedly bourgmestres - mayors - of local communes in the country, accused of organizing and leading the killing in their areas.

James Lewis QC, representing the Rwandan government, told the court that Dr Bajinya was a member of the governing MRND party, and present at a key 1993 meeting in a stadium in Kigali at which the anti-Tutsi "Hutu Power" movement was said to have been born.

"He played a high-profile role in that meeting, being the master of ceremonies," Mr Lewis said. "The primary purpose of that meeting was to encourage Hutus to dissociate themselves from the enemy."

He later attended a series of "genocide meetings" in Kigali and became a leader in the Interahamwe militia, which was to spearhead the slaughter, Mr Lewis told the court. He set up roadblocks in the Rugenge area of Kigali, ordering the militia to kill anyone they suspected of being a Tutsi.

Court papers allege that in one incident a man called Leandre, suspected of being a Tutsi, was brought to a roadblock where Dr Bajinya was allegedly giving orders.

Dr Bajinya is accused of ordering the militia to "cut Leandre into pieces so that he would not recover".

The same day Dr Bajinya allegedly led a party to a house where a Tutsi woman was taking refuge with her two-month-old baby, the papers show. After the baby was killed, Dr Bajinya is accused of personally interrogating the woman about where her fellow inyenzi (cockroaches) were before a militia man shot her dead.

Mr Munyaneza was bourgmestre of the Kinyamakara commune, the court heard. Mr Lewis said: "He organized the training of the Interahamwe militias, he instituted and supervised road blocks established to identify Tutsis from the identity cards which separated ethnic groups.

"Once the Tutsis were identified they were killed by the Interahamwe."

Emmanuel Nteziryayo, the court heard, was bourgmestre of the Mudasomwa commune, and allegedly handed out weapons, oversaw roadblocks and once drove Tutsis to a police station to be killed.

The fourth defendant, Mr Ugirashebuja, was bourgmestre of the Kigoma commune. He is also accused of organizing road blocks, urging Hutus to kill Tutsis and distributing guns.

The hearing continues.