Dutch police arrest Rwandan war crime suspect

Dutch Police in Amsterdam have arrested a 38-year-old man suspected of taking part in war crimes in Rwanda during that country's 1994 genocide, Dutch media reported on Thursday.

The Dutch prosecutor's office identified the suspect as Joseph M., declining to give his full name. It said he was arrested on Monday in Amsterdam.

A spokeswoman from the office was quoted as saying that the suspect had been investigated since May on information received from the immigration office.

According to witness statements, the suspect had taken part in attacks on minority Tutsis in Mugonero.

"He is in prison now and will probably appear before a Dutch court within about 100 days," the spokeswoman said.

Under Dutch law, any foreign national resident in the Netherlands can be prosecuted on war crimes charges.

"According to the war crimes act he must be a Dutch citizen to be tried on genocide charges in a Dutch court, so he can only be brought in on war crimes charges," the spokeswoman said of the Rwandan national.

The prosecutor's office said in a statement the accused was the brother of a man who has been convicted of one count of genocide for his role in mass killings in Rwanda and sentenced by a Tanzania-based U.N. court to 25 years in prison.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in the northern town of Arusha, was set up in 1994 to prosecute the masterminds of the genocide, in which nearly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in Rwanda by Hutu extremists backed by the government in a 100-day campaign of genocide.

Since it was established in 1994, the tribunal has indicted more than 80 people for genocide-related crimes, convicted 25 and acquitted three.

Source: Xinhua