Ex-pastor faces U.S. deportation on Rwandan genocide charge

Elizaphan Ntakirutimana

March 15, 2000
Web posted at: 11:01 p.m. EST (0401 GMT)

In this story: Survivors implicate suspect Extradition a U.S. first RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Correspondent Charles Zewe

LAREDO, Texas (CNN) -- Elizaphan Ntakirutimana left Rwanda for the United States after the 1994 genocide that left hundreds of thousands Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. Days from now, he could be going back -- in shackles.

The United States soon is expected to send Ntakirutimana back to Africa to stand trial for participating in the genocide by army-backed Hutu militias. The 75-year-old Ntakirutimana, a retired Seventh-day Adventist minister, denies aiding the rampages.

"Jesus, that's a lie. That's a big lie," his daughter, Gloria Ntakirutimana, said.

The United Nations tribunal investigating the Rwanda genocide disagrees.

As massacres swept the country, they say, Ntakirutimana and his son Gerard -- members of the country's ethnic Hutus -- took thousands of Tutsis into his church compound in the town of Mugonero. He promised them protection, prosecutors say -- then brought a troop of soldiers, police and armed civilians to the church to murder them.

If convicted on charges of genocide, Ntakirutimana could be sentenced to life in prison

"The attack resulted in hundreds of deaths and a large number of wounded among the men, women and children who had sought refuge at the complex," the U.N. tribunal investigating the Rwandan genocide found.

The genocide erupted in April 1994, after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated. Hutu extremists turned on the country's Tutsi minority, leaving an estimated 800,000 dead over three months.

Ntakirutimana's family says the minority Tutsis who sought shelter in his church had done so before in times of trouble.

"They (the killers) knew that everybody had fled there, so when they came to kill them, that's where they went," Gloria Ntakirutimana said.

But U.S. authorities say Ntakirutimana's own parishioners have testified against him.

"Their information was very specific about the roles that the pastor played or acted out in the community," Assistant U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said.

Ntakirutimana lived in this Laredo, Texas, home and occasionally preached in local churches

When the genocide ended and a Tutsi-led government took power, Ntakirutimana left the country and settled in Laredo, Texas, with his family. He worked in a health food store and preached occasionally in local Seventh-day Adventist churches.

He was arrested in September 1996 and has spent most of the time since then fighting extradition. If deported, it would mark the first time the country has deported a war crimes suspect to an international court.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. His lawyers have challenged whether extradition treaties would allow him to be deported to an international body. But federal courts ruled against him.

As Ntakirutimana awaited extradition, authorities in Denmark on Wednesday ruled that another Rwandan war crimes suspect could be deported to stand trial before the tribunal, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Innocent Sagahutu, a 38-year-old former captain in Rwanda's army, immediately appealed the ruling. He was arrested last month in Denmark, where he lived as a political refugee, on charges he participated in the genocide and in the killings of 10 Belgian U.N. soldiers.

Rwandan bishop denies accusations of genocide
September 15, 1999
In Rwanda, reconciliation -- and retribution -- come slowly
April 4, 1999
Report: Rwandan genocide could have been prevented
March 31, 1999
U.N. court gives Rwandan killer 15 years
February 5, 1999

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
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