Rwanda suspect arrested in Kosovo

UNITED NATIONS -- A former U.N. worker, suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, has been arrested in Kosovo.

U.N. police in Kosovo said they picked up Callixte Mbarushimana in the southeastern town of Gnjilane, Kosovo, on Friday, following a March 15 international warrant from the government of Rwanda.

Charges against Mbarushimana include genocide and crimes against humanity, Emmanuel Rukangira, the chief advocate at the Rwandan prosecutor's office in Kigali said.

Mbarushimana has held several posts with the humanitarian organisation over the last decade including working for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo -- the Yugoslav province administered by the United Nations.

He was fired by another U.N. agency in November 1999, months after allegations against him surfaced.

Mbarushimana, a Hutu, is suspected of revealing to marauding Hutu militiamen the hiding places of his Tutsi co-workers at the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) office in Kigali during the 1994 genocide.

An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three months of slaughter that ended when Tutsi exiles invaded and took over the government.

U.N. officials said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, learned of the case this year and was reported to have been horrified.

He went to Kosovo earlier this month to make sure the arrest warrant was delivered and that the United Nations waived immunities for the suspect, the officials said.

But the saga of how Mbarushimana slipped through several U.N. personnel departments is not clear.

UNDP reported it employed him as an "information assistant" in Rwanda from July 1992 to December 1994. Sources in Kigali argue Mbarushimana ran the UNDP office after expatriates left during the bloodletting.

Then in December 1996, UNDP said it recommended him as a computer network manager under a project Belgium financed in Rwanda and run by the U.N. Volunteers, a Bonn-based U.N. body.

"At some point thereafter allegations began to surface that Mr. Mbarushimana was complicit in the murders of UNDP personnel and their families," UNDP said in a statement in New York.

He was dismissed by U.N. Volunteers on November 25, 1999, a month before his contract expired, UNDP said.

Other U.N. officials said Mbarushimana then went to Angola, from where he applied for the Kosovo post. Authorities in Rwanda said he may have worked for UNDP or a related U.N. agency in Angola also but this could not be verified.

UNDP said it was not equipped to conduct an investigation and "turned the matter over" to the prosecutor for the U.N. tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, set up to try cases relating to the Rwanda genocide.

Rwandan sources maintain the tribunal did not pursue the case.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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CIA - The World Factbook 2000 - Rwanda

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