A Rwandan woman who was deported by the United States (US) after serving a prison term for lying on her naturalisation application has been arrested upon arrival in Rwanda, where she faces seven charges related to the 1994 genocide.
Thierry Murangira, spokesperson for the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation, said Beatrice Munyenyezi will be charged for crimes ranging from murder to complicity in rape, which occurred as she was manning a roadblock in the southern city of Butare.
His comments on Friday evening came after Munyenyezi, who had secured US citizenship in New Hampshire in 2003, was flown into Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, accompanied by US federal agents.
Munyenyezi denied accusations of involvement in the genocide during her trial in the US. She did not speak to waiting journalists as Rwandan police took her into custody when she arrived.
During the genocide between April and July of 1994, some 800,000 people were slaughtered, mainly from the ethnic Tutsi minority but also moderate Hutus.
The roadblock where Munyenyezi is accused of committing the crimes was situated outside a hotel in Butare that was owned by her in-laws.
Munyenyezi’s mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, and her husband Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, were convicted and sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha for their roles in the genocide.
Munyenyezi was stripped of her US citizenship and jailed for 10 years in 2013, after she was found guilty by a court of misrepresenting material facts when she secured the naturalisation.—Al Jazeera