KIGALI, Rwanda: A Rwandan man suspected of participating in the country’s 1994 genocide has been deported from the United States and will stand trial for his alleged crimes, according to local authorities.
Jean Léonard Teganya, who arrived in the East African nation on Monday, faces charges related to genocide, said Justin Nkusi, a spokesperson for the prosecution.
Teganya is currently being interrogated by police before prosecutors receive his file, Nkusi said.
Teganya, 55, was indicted in 2014 over his alleged involvement in genocidal crimes in several areas in the district of Huye, in Rwanda’s south. Rwandan authorities say he allegedly committed some of his crimes at a university campus and a medical school in Huye.
The 2014 indictment triggered an investigation into Teganya’s presence in the US, with Rwanda seeking his deportation. At the time, Teganya denied playing a part in the genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by extremist Hutus.
Teganya fled Rwanda in July 1994 and later sought asylum in Canada. According to the US Justice Department, he evaded a Canadian deportation order and crossed into the US in 2014. In 2019, a federal jury in Boston found that Teganya had committed immigration fraud and perjury after seeking asylum in the US
