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Rwandan genocide: Ex-UN employee vowed to « eliminate them all »

A former Hutu militia leader employed by the United Nations is facing fresh allegations over his role in the 1994 genocide after the International Criminal Court in The Hague released him on December 23 saying there was insufficient evidence to convict him.

AFP
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Callixte Mbarushimana is alleged to have directed and participated in the murder 32 people including U.N. employees he was hired to protect.

Straight after his release from a call in the suburbs of The Hague, Mbarushimana took a plane to Paris, where he previously lived as a political refugee.

On his arrival, police arrested him and took him to a magistrate who reminded the Rwandan that he is also under investigation in a separate, French legal inquiry.

And, in a new twist to the Mbarushimana case, a former member of the United Nations’ humanitarian mission to Rwanda has said he is ready to testify in court against him.

Gregory Alex took over as head of a UN emergency aid unit in the Rwandan capital Kigali in January 1994.

At the start of the massacres, he was evacuated for ten days before returning to head his small team of aid workers.

Alex told RFI that he met Callixte Mbarushimana in Kigali in April of that year.

He said that Mbarushimana, then Executive Secretary of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), approached him in the United Nations gardens and said « we will eliminate them all ».

Despite numerous complaints, Mbarushimana continued to work for the United Nations. After Rwanda he was given posts in Kenya, Angola and Kosovo.

He was dismissed from the U.N. in 2001 but in 2004 he won a lawsuit seeking compensation for his dismissal.

Gregory Alex says he is prepared to testify against Mbarushimana if French police ask him to do so.

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