Rwandan Genocide Suspect Captured In Congo

On the heels of the arrest of Ratko Mladic in Serbia, another war crimes fugitive has been captured thousands of miles away in southern Africa.

Bernard Munyagishari, who was accused of murdering Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the genocidal war in Rwanda in 1994, has been seized in the town of North Kivu the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He was reportedly caught by Congolese army forces in collaboration with a United Nations tracking team.

Munyagishari has been evading international justice for 17 years.

Specifically, Munyagishari is believed to be a militia leader who plotted the mass killings in Gisenyi, just across the border from DRC.

Munyagishari will face charges of genocide, murder and rape and will likely be transferred over to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), a court based in Tanzania that was established to try the genocide suspects.

Overall, about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and some Hutus were killed in the 100-day civil war in Rwanda, one of the bloodiest episodes since World War II.

According to BBC, nine other Rwandan genocide suspects remain at large. It is believed that some of them are hiding out in Congo.

The indictment against him also charges that he perpetrated attacks on people seeking sanctuary in churches and that a female militia group under his command sexually tortured Tutsi women before murdering them.