Rwanda genocide survivors call on France to retry fugitive

Survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide under their Umbrella association "IBUKA" have called on the French government to retry a released Rwandan man suspected of participating in the 1994 genocide.

Genocide suspect Charles Twagira was released late last month but this did not impress the Rwandan survivors of the genocide that claimed more than 1 million lives in a 100 days spell.

Twagira, who was first indicted in March 2014 for genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda, was sentenced in 2009 in absentia to life imprisonment by a Rwandan court for crimes against humanity and genocide.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, the president of IBUKA, said that the release of Twagira by the French court is total impunity in the face of Rwandans who lost their loved ones in the genocide.

"We call upon the French government to retry the case of the released genocide fugitive or extradite him to Rwanda to serve his jail term. We are not happy by the decision made by the French court and we really condemn it," he said.

Twagira, who has worked at a hospital in the French city of Rouen, has just been naturalized as a French citizen.

During the Genocide, the suspect worked as a regional health director in former Kibuye, western Rwanda, where he allegedly ordered the killings of tens of thousands of people, especially in the hospital he managed.

Godeberthe Uwamariya, one of the survivors in Kibuye, said that Twagira participated in the killing of many Tutsi patients at the hospital during the genocide and his release is a mockery to victims and survivors.

"We want him to face the law and pay for what his did to innocent Rwandans. We are not pleased by the French court ruling," she noted.

Rwanda's 1996 organic law was given a retroactive mandate of apprehending Genocide suspects, meaning it was empowered to try crimes committed between 1990 and 1994.

Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is obliged to act once genocide occurs anywhere in the world.

Presently seven people accused of committing genocide have been extradited from Uganda, Canada, U.S. and the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to stand trial in Rwanda.

More fugitives are still being tracked, including wealthy Rwandan businessman, Felicien Kabuga, accused of bankrolling the Genocide.