Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

RWANDA

War crimes suspect arrested in Stockholm

Swedish police have arrested a man suspected of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He was arrested late Thursday evening at Bromma airport, just outside Stockholm.

Published: 23 December 2011 12:54 CET

The arrest occurred at 10pm, upon the man’s return from a trip abroad, according to chief investigator Anders Wretling.

The suspect is in his fifties, and lives in Gävle, in central Sweden. According to the police he has both Swedish and Rwandan citizenship.

The remand hearing is expected to be held in Stockholm as early as Friday, “if there’s time”, according to Wretling.

If not, the hearing will be held over Christmas.

According to Wretling, plenty of work remains to be done in the investigation, which has been going on since April.

Swedish police have visited Rwanda several times.

“We’re happy to be able to give a clear signal that Sweden is no safe haven for war criminals,” said Wretling to the TT news agency.

The suspect was interrogated shortly after his arrest, and denies all crimes. His lawyer Tomas Nilsson assisted him in a police interrogation on Friday afternoon.

“As you surely understand, I can’t tell you what was said, except that my client denied all crimes,” said Nilsson to TT. This was the first time he met with the suspect.

This case is the third major case since Swedish police formed a special war crime commission.

Earlier this year, a Bosnian was sentenced to five years in prison for war crimes, the second person to have been convicted of that particular crime in Sweden after Jackie Arklöv.

A Kosovo Serb is also suspected of participating in a 1999 massacre during the Kosovo War, and will receive the court’s ruling on 20 January.

During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, some 800,000 people were murdered. The genocide was carried out by extreme nationalists from the majority people, the Hutu. Victims were mainly from the minority group Tutsi.

The highest leaders from the genocide are put before the UN’s special Rwanda tribunal in Tanzania.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

IMMIGRATION

Danish government tables bill for offshore asylum centres as ministers return from Rwanda

A bill tabled by the Danish government and visit to Rwanda by Danish ministers has fuelled speculation Copenhagen plans to open an offshore asylum centre in the African country.

Published: 30 April 2021 16:42 CEST
Danish government tables bill for offshore asylum centres as ministers return from Rwanda
Sjælsmark, a Danish 'departure centre' for rejected asylum seekers, photographed in August 2020. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Immigration minister Mattias Tesfaye and international development minister Flemming Møller Mortensen this week travelled to Rwanda where they signed an agreement with the Rwandan government. 

The trip was surrounded by an element of secrecy, with the ministers initially refusing to speak to Danish media and only the Rwandan foreign ministry officially publicising it.

READ ALSO: Danish ministers visit Rwanda but stay quiet on agreement

The two ministers landed back in Copenhagen on Thursday afternoon, the same day the government tabled a new bill sub-titled “Introduction of the option to transfer asylum seekers for processing and possible subsequent protection in third countries”.

Commenting on the Rwandan trip for the first time, Tesfaye declined to confirm the talks included discussion of an asylum centre. The government wants “discussions to take place in confidentiality”, he told broadcaster DR. He also rejected a connection to the bill, tabled by his ministry on Thursday, DR writes.

“It’s correct that it’s the government’s wish to establish a new asylum system where processing of asylum claims is moved out of Denmark. We are in dialogue with a number of countries about that,” the minister also said.

The agreement signed in Rwanda is “a framework on future partnerships” related to “environment and climate”, he said, adding “on the Danish side, we wish to manage migration in a better and fairer way. We have agreed to pursue this.”

Denmark’s Social Democratic government has a long-standing desire to establish a reception centre for refugees in a third country.

Rwanda in 2019 built a centre for asylum seekers stranded in Libya, but that centre has received a limited number of asylum seekers so far, DR reports based on UN data.

The Danish foreign ministry earlier confirmed that the two countries have agreed to work more closely on asylum and migration.

“This is not a case of a binding agreement, but a mutual framework for future partnership. The two governments will spend the coming period discussing concrete areas where the partnership can be strengthened,” the ministry wrote to DR.

The Danish Refugee Council criticised the bill, tweeting that “transfer of asylum seekers to a third country, as (proposed) in (parliament) today is irresponsible, lacks solidarity and should be condemned”.

“Over 80 million people have been driven from their homes while Denmark has a historically low number of asylum seekers. In that light it’s shameful that the government is trying to buy its way out of the responsibility for protecting refugees… it sets a dangerous example,” the NGO added.

The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, has also responded to the law proposed by the government on Thursday.

The implementation of such a law would “rely on an agreement with a third country”, the UNHCR noted.

The agency wrote that it “strongly urges Denmark to refrain from establishing laws and practices that would externalize its asylum obligations” under UN conventions.

READ ALSO: Denmark registered record low number of asylum seekers in 2020

SHOW COMMENTS