US deports Rwanda genocide suspect Leopold Munyakazi
- Published
About 800,000 people were killed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide
The US has deported a Rwandan academic, accused of being a key figure in the 1994 genocide, to his home country.
Leopold Munyakazi's deportation came after he lost a long-running legal battle to gain asylum in the US.
He is accused of wearing banana leaves during the genocide to identify himself as a Hutu, and of organising night raids on the homes of families from the rival Tutsi ethnic group.
Mr Munyakazi, a former university professor, has denied the allegations.
Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu militias in just 100 days in 1994
Mr Munyakazi fled to the US in 2004.
Rwanda has since demanded his extradition, saying it wanted to try him on charges of genocide and conspiracy to committing genocide.
He has been accused, by the government-backed National Commission for the Fight against Genocide, of ordering Hutu militiamen to hunt down Tutsis and of personally shooting dead a man named Ugirashebuja Felicien Kirwa in the area of Kirwa in south-eastern Rwanda.
The commission also accuses him of promoting hatred and writing an article in 1991 in which he called for Tutsis to be given only 10% representation in schools and jobs.
Mr Munyakazi insists that he is a moderate Hutu who helped Tutsis during the genocide.