Rights groups decry French asylum given to genocide suspect

Human rights groups have protested against France's decision to grant asylum to a man sought by the Rwandan government for allegedly being a Category One genocide suspect. In a statement issued on 31 January, the Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme, the French Ligue des droits de l'homme, Cimade and Survie said they were "stupefied" by the granting of refugee status to the individual, whom they did not name, by France's Commission des recours des refugies. They said that France's Office francais de protection des refugies et apatrides had earlier denied the request on the basis of article 1.f.a, which excludes from protection under the Geneva Convention any person regarding whom there is substantial reason to believe had committed a crime against humanity. The statement noted that the individual was not being sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, created by the UN Security Council by resolution 955 of 8 November 1994 for "the prosecution of persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994". However, IRIN has learned that the individual in question is Pierre Tegera. According to the Rwandan government, Tegera served as an honorary president of the Kibilira commune chapter of the Interahamwe in the prefecture of Gisenyi. Together with the then-Rwandan army, the Interahamwe - ethnic Hutu militias - were largely responsible for the slaughter of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate ethnic Hutus from April to July 1994. Noting that genocide suspects had reason to fear "inhumane and degrading treatment" if they were to return to Rwanda, the statement called on French political and judicial authorities to bring such suspects to trial in France, with all guaranties therein implied, following the example of Belgium and Switzerland. The Rwandan government defines Category One suspects as persons whose criminal acts or whose acts of criminal participation place them among the planners, organisers, instigators, supervisors and leaders of the crime of genocide or of a crime against humanity; persons who acted in positions of authority at the national, prefectorial, communal, sectoral or cell level, or in a political party, the army, religious organisation or militia and who perpetrated or fostered such crimes; notorious murderers who by virtue of the zeal or excessive malice with which they committed atrocities distinguished themselves in their areas of residence or where they passed; and persons who committed acts of sexual torture or violence.