Genocide suspect arrested in Belgium

Belgian police in Brussels arrested on Wednesday a former Rwandan army colonel wanted for genocide and other crimes allegedly committed in his country in 1994, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda reported.

Leonidas Rusatira, 58, was commandant of the Rwandan military school, the Ecole Superieure Militaire. He allegedly played a "major role" in the killing of thousands of Tutsis who sought refuge in a Kigali technical school, the Ecole Technique Officielle, the Tribunal reported.

Reports of widespread killing in and near the capital, Kigali, on 7 April 1994 spurred thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus to seek refuge at the technical school, then under the protection of the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda. Rusatira also gave assurances that the army would protect the school's new occupants. But after 10 Belgian UN soldiers guarding Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana were killed, the UN forces left the school.

Shortly afterwards, on 11 April, soldiers allegedly commanded by Rusatira and members of the Interahamwe, the Hutu extremist militia led by George Rutaganda, moved in and killed thousands, the Tribunal said. Survivors were led to Nyanza where, under Rusatira's supervision, they were killed by army troops and the Interahamwe, the Tribunal said. He was promoted to general "some days after the massacre", the Tribunal said, citing Rusatira's indictment. He will be sent to the Tribunal's detention facility in Arusha, northern Tanzania.

Rutaganda was serving a life term for genocide and crimes against humanity (murder and extermination), but had appealed against his conviction, the Tribunal said.