Dutch court blocks bid for Rwandan extraditions

The Hague (AFP) - A Dutch court on Friday blocked the extradition of two Rwandan men accused of involvement in the central African country's 1994 genocide, court papers and media reports said.

Dutch courts have previously ruled that Jean Claude Iyamuremye, 39, and Jean-Baptiste Mugimba, around 56, should be returned to Rwanda to face a raft of charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.

But their lawyers earlier this month brought urgent interdicts before the Hague district court based on new information, which the lawyers said showed they would not have a fair trial if sent back to Kigali.

The lawyers based their argument on a recent report by a former Dutch justice official currently working as an adviser in Rwanda's public prosecuting authority.

The official argued that Rwandan defence lawyers in genocide cases "have neither the knowledge, experience nor are in the position to conduct such an investigation," and therefore the men would not receive a fair trial.

A Dutch judge agreed with the lawyers and said Iyamuremye will not be extradited to Rwanda "unless the state can disprove the objections, as noted by the Dutch official," in court papers seen by AFP.

Dutch media reported the judge had made a similar finding in Mugimba's case.

Iyamuremye is particularly wanted in connection with a mass murder at a school outside Kigali on April 11, 1994, court papers said.

Some 2,000 Tutsi victims were massacred that day near the ETO school, on the outskirts of the Rwandan capital, after UN peacekeepers withdrew from the area, according to the Kigali Memorial Centre's website.

Rwanda requested his extradition in September 2013 and three months later a Dutch judge approved it.

Mugimba, who was arrested in the Netherlands in January 2014, is suspected of attacking Tutsis in his Kigali neighbourhood.

Six months later, a Dutch court ruled that he too could be sent to Kigali.

Rwanda's bloodshed was sparked when a plane carrying the country's then-president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down on April 6, 1994.

His death was blamed on Rwanda's minority Tutsi population, and over the next three months, hundreds of thousands died in an orgy of violence.