Exiled Rwandan rebel leader to face ICC trial

A French court agreed on Wednesday to send exiled Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana to the International Criminal Court to face charges that he mastermined war crimes from his hideaway in France.

The 47-year-old former "executive secretary" of the Hutu guerrilla FDLR, who had been living in France as a computer technician, is accused of ordering murders, rapes and torture in the jungles of eastern Congo in 2009.

He could now be taken to The Hague to face charges at the international tribunal, although his lawyers have vowed to lodge an appeal.

His arrest followed an international campaign by lawyers and activists to persuade France to extradite alleged Rwandan war criminals living on its soil.

Mbarushimana was present at the hearing -- a short man with receding hair, round glasses and a black jacket -- but did not react to the ruling.

The Paris appeals court ruled in favour of a warrant issued by the ICC on the condition that "under no circumstances should Mr Mbarushimana be taken back by any means to Rwanda".

Mbarushimana denies the charges, and his lawyers claimed the ICC warrant could be a first step towards sending him back to Rwanda, where they argue he would not get a fair trial from a government led by his former foes.

The accused has lived in France as a political refugee since 2002, occasionally releasing press statements defending the FDLR.

Nevertheless, UN experts working in the Kivu region in the wartorn east of the Democratic Republic of Congo found evidence that the exiled rebel leader remain in touch with their rebel comrades.

A report into militia violence, corruption and mineral smuggling in the region revealed satellite telephone calls between Hutu refugees in Europe and North America and fighters on the ground.

He was arrested last month after the ICC drew up an arrest warrant on five charges of crimes against humanity and six for war crimes in 2009.

Since issuing the charge sheet in September, the court has also warned that Mbarushimana may also be charged with a series of mass rapes carried out on villagers as recently as late July and early August of this year.

The United Nations says a coalition of at least 200 fighters from the Mai-Mai militia and from Mbarushimana's FDLR raped some 500 men, women and children in 13 villages in the Walikale region.

Inside Rwanda, survivors of the 1994 genocide allege that Mbarushimana was also involved in those mass killings, in which forces unleashed by the Hutu-led government murdered more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi civilians.

Tutsi rebels overthrew the genocidal regime and the Hutu forces fled to neighbouring Congo, where the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) sprang up among the sprawling refugee camps.

Former Rwandan soldiers, Interahamwe militia and some younger refugees formed the gang that became the FDLR, launching attacks across the border into Rwanda and trying unsuccessfully to topple the regime in 2001.

In 2009 UN-backed Congolese forces beat back the FDLR, which is accused of carrying out numerous atrocities against civilians.

According to international pressure group Human Rights Watch, the FDLR committed at least 630 murders of civilians between January and September 2009.

Rwanda's current government would like to see alleged Hutu war criminals tried for genocide in Kigali, and some victims have called for them to be sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania.

But lawyers acting for the exiles argue that they would not get a fair trial in Rwanda, and the ICC mandate issued against Mbarushimana in any case refers to crimes allegedly carried out inside Congo.

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