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Rwandan bishop ‘complicit in genocide’ can stay in UK

THE Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that a former Rwandan bishop accused of complicity in the country’s 1994 genocide has leave to remain in Britain.

Jonathan Ruhumuliza, 62, was said to have had “many meetings with the Interahamwe [Hutu militia] and members of the interim government” during the mass killing which left 800,000 Tutsis dead.

He spoke at a press conference in Kenya in June 1994, blaming the opposition Rwandan Patriotic Front for the killings.

Human Rights Watch said Mr Ruhumuliza “acted as [a] spokesmen for the genocidal government.”

He moved to Britain in 2004 and was appointed as a priest in Worcestershire in 2005, but his application for asylum was rejected as there were “serious reasons for considering that he had committed … a crime against humanity.”

He won on appeal, before the Home Office unsuccessfully appealed to the upper tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

Lord Justices Underhill and Irwin dismissed the appeal and refused permission to go to the Supreme Court.

But Lord Justice Singh, dissenting, said there was a “real danger that the First Tier Tribunal never fully appreciated the true gravity” of the allegations and said he would have sent the case back to the FTT.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
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