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LONDON – Three men suspected of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide were arrested in Belgium this week, according to Belgian authorities, the latest in a series of arrests related to the 100-day bloodbath in which up to a million were killed. people. .
A spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said the men were arrested on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that two of the suspects remained in custody while the third was placed under electronic surveillance.
“The investigation is still ongoing and the prosecution will determine whether the men should be tried,” said the spokesman, Eric Van der Sypt.
He declined to provide details on the identities of the men, who were accused of serious human rights abuses.
The arrests, which were reported by the Belgian weekly Le Vif on Friday, are the latest attempts to see justice for the genocide, in which up to a million ethnic Tutsis and Hutus were killed.
After more than two decades on the run, Félicien Kabuga, a wealthy tycoon accused of financing the genocide, was arrested by French authorities in May outside his home in a Paris suburb. Mr. Kabuga, 84, was accused of importing several hundred thousand machetes that were used during the killings and was also accused of having financed Radio-Television Mille Collines, which incited hatred against ethnic Tutsis.
Kabuga denied the allegations and his lawyers said he was too old to be tried in a United Nations court in Tanzania. But in late September, France’s highest court of appeals ruled that he should be tried at the International Criminal Tribunals Mechanism in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.
The court took over the functions of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which withdrew in 2015 and indicted Kabuga in 1997 on seven counts, including genocide and crimes against humanity.
The Rwandan government has also tried to arrest and extradite those involved in the genocide. In late August, Kigali officials wrote to French authorities in an effort to extradite a former spy chief, Major General Aloys Ntiwiragabo, who was charged with crimes against humanity. He was found in July while living in the suburbs of Orleans, about 70 miles southwest of Paris.
Rwanda has also cracked down on those it accuses of denying the genocide and distorting how events unfolded in those tragic days. Among them is Paul Rusesabagina, the famous hotelier who appears in the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, who housed 1,268 people during the murders.
Last month, authorities said they had lured Mr. Rusesabagina, whom they previously accused of downplaying the gravity of the genocide, to return from abroad. He now faces 13 charges, including terrorism, complicity in kidnapping and murder, and formation of a rebel group, all of which he denies.
The UN Criminal Court for Rwanda indicted more than 90 people and tried 80 of them, according to data provided by the court. Six fugitives suspected of participating in the genocide remain on the international list of the most wanted.
Since 2001, Belgium has held five trials of Rwandans accused of participating in the genocide. In 2009, a Brussels court sentenced a former executive of the Commercial Bank of Rwanda, Ephrem Nkezabera, to 30 years in prison for war crimes.
In December, a Brussels court found a former Rwandan official guilty of genocide for the first time. The official, Fabien Neretse, was also convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Elian Peltier reported from London and Abdi Latif Dahir from Nairobi, Kenya.
