UN spokesman accuses S Africa of delaying the killing of Rwandan killers

South Africa has banned the search for the last surviving leaders of Rwanda, who is on the verge of sentencing the most wanted people in Africa, decades after the assassination, said a United Nations official who led the investigation.

The government of President Cyril Ramaphosa is launching a “shocking and frustrating” delay as suspected suicide bombers who fled to South Africa in recent years, Serge Brammertz, head of the 1994 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yugoslavia. in the 1990s, he told the Financial Times.

The hunt for refugees in Rwanda was intensified last year with the French capture of Félicien Kabuga, who is said to have helped kill the victims, after years of fleeing.

But South Africa has not yet set up a police force to liaise with international law enforcement agencies to locate suspects, despite promising several things recently last month, Brammertz said.

Brammertz, who oversees the “International Criminal Procedure Code,” told the UN Security Council this week that South Africa’s lack of assistance was “one of the most serious cases my office has faced.”

In fact, it has taken years for South Africa to investigate Fulgence Kayishema, a suspected assassin who is believed to have fled the country in the past, Brammertz said.

The country’s failure has been “significant in light of the number of refugees fleeing South Africa” ​​beyond Kayishema, his office added in a report this week. The South African Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Relations between South Africa and Rwanda have been shattered by the assassination of a former Rwandan intelligence chief in Johannesburg in 2014.

Serious criticism shows how many years before the genocide, the end of Rwanda’s latest murder cases will depend on the enactment of laws in African countries that many refugees believe are still widespread.

More than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu extremists were killed in 1994 in 100 bloody days. But after the Tutsi rebel group seized control of the capital in July, many Hutu officials involved in the genocide fled, first to neighboring Congo or Uganda to Kenya, before dispersing elsewhere.

Kayishema, a former police judge, participated in the massacre of refugees at a church in 1994, according to international prosecutors. Hand grenades were hurled into the church before the terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,500 people. “There is no need for South Africa to help such a person escape from the country,” Brammertz said.

In contrast, he said there were “positive signs” that Zimbabwe, adjacent to South Africa, was trying to apprehend his much-needed fugitive, Protais Mpiranya, a former Rwandan security guard.

Mpiranya, who was second on the wanted list until Kabuga was arrested, is believed to have used military ties with Zimbabwe to hide there. “I think it must have been close to the beginning of the 21st century. . . and there is a need for more, “Brammertz said.

While “we really want to see more cases on the ground,” Zimbabwe has been involved in joint research with lawyers around the world than ever before, he added.

Local cooperation is needed to provide information and access to refugee camps, Brammertz said. “This can only work if we have the opportunity to go to work,” said police and immigrants, he said.

Kabuga is now on his way to The Hague, Mpiranya would be the final international in a Rwandan genocide case. The Brammertz court is also following up with five other Rwandan refugees, including Kayishema, but has not been arrested.

As the Brammertz-led process draws to a close, government officials in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia are using their resources to pursue their own interests, a necessary but significant change in the search for refugees.

As the international community monitors the 6 refugees, the Rwandan prosecutor has about 1,300 cases pending. More than half of the suspects believe they are still in Africa.