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Idelphonse Nizeyimana was apprehended in Uganda. |
NAIROBI - One of the most-wanted fugitives from Rwanda’s genocide, an intelligence officer accused of organizing the slaughter of civilians, including a ceremonial queen, was arrested this week in Uganda, Ugandan and Rwandan officials said yesterday.
Idelphonse Nizeyimana had been on the run for years. He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2000 and charged with crimes against humanity and offenses related to genocide for orchestrating massacres of civilians, including whole families. He had been an intelligence officer in the former Rwandan Army and was the second in command of an elite military school in Rwanda before the country exploded in genocide in 1994.
More recently, Nizeyimana was a top commander of a rebel army of former Rwandan soldiers hiding out in the forests of eastern Congo, Rwandan officials said. That force, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, has been blamed for some of the most atrocious attacks in eastern Congo and is widely seen as a threat to regional peace.
Eric Kayiranga, a Rwandan police spokesman, said Nizeyimana was arrested Monday, though he did not have many details about the capture. According to the BBC, Nizeyimana was caught in Kampala with false papers.
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