From left-Jean Baptiste Mugimba and Jean Claude Iyamuremye
A Dutch court decides tomorrow morning, Friday, whether two Rwandan genocide suspects should be deported and face trial back home or try them in The Netherlands.
Rwanda had requested for Jean-Baptiste Mugimba 56, and Jean Claude Iyamuremye 38, to be extradited to account for their role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis that claimed over a million lives.
Iyamuremye was arrested in July 2013 at Voorburg, Netherlands. His case was referred to a Dutch court of First Instance in The Hague in October 2014 for an extradition hearing to face trial in Rwanda. Rwanda’s request was granted, but was never executed.
Mugimba was arrested in the Dutch municipality, Leusden, in January 2014; about seven months after his residence permit had been revoked. Rwanda had in November 2012 issued an indictment and international arrest warrant against him.
Rwanda accuses Mugimba of multiple charges for crimes committed during genocide in areas of Nyakabanda and Nyamirambo sectors of Nyarugenge suburbs of the capital Kigali.
According to Rwanda prosecution officials, Mugimba is charged with; conspiracy to commit genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, murder and extermination as crimes against humanity.
During the Genocide, Mugimba was the secretary-general of the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic, an extremist ethnic party.
On November 13, 2015 the two suspects appealed to the Hague court to drop their extradition.
Netherlands Justice and Security minister visited Rwanda in 2014 where he said his country was ready to extradite or deport some genocide suspects to Rwanda within the next one-and-a-half years.
The Hague court will decide the fate of the two suspects by 9:00am, according to a source in the Rwandan Embassy in Netherlands.
