Published: Sunday November 8, 2009 MYT 8:31:00 AM
Canada charges Rwandan man with war crimes
TORONTO (AP): Canadian police charged a Rwandan immigrant Saturday with war crimes related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Jacques Mungwarere, 37, is alleged to have committed an act of genocide in the area of Kibuye, Rwanda, during the genocide that saw at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus slaughtered.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Marc Menard refused to go into details about the allegation against Mungwarere, saying that prosecutors in the Justice Department will have to answer specifics.
Officials with the Justice Department were not immediately available to comment.
Kibuye is the capital of a western province and situated on a lake that borders Rwanda and the Congo. It was the scene of a horrific massacre in 1994 where at least 2,000 ethnic Tutsis died when bulldozers knocked down the church where they had sought refuge.
Mungwarere made a brief court appearance in Ottawa, where he was remanded to custody. He had been living in Windsor, Ontario. He is only the second person to have been charged under a new law allowing residents in Canada to be tried for war crimes committed abroad.
Last month, Desire Munyanea, 42, a Rwandan immigrant living in Canada, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide.
Munyaneza, a Hutu, was convicted of trying to destroy the Tutsi ethnic group in Butare and the surrounding area.
He was the first defendant to be tried under Canada's seven-year-old War Crimes Act.
Menard said there is connection between Mungwarere's case and the Munyaneza prosecution, but he would not elaborate on the specifics of the connection.
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