CONCORD, NH (AP) – A woman who served a 10-year sentence in US prison for lying about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to obtain US citizenship, and subsequently lost her bid for a retrial deported the East African nation and is likely to be prosecuted there.
Beatrice Munyenyezi, who, according to a US judge, was “actively involved” in the murder of Tutsis in Rwanda, was convicted and convicted in 2013 in New Hampshire. It was her second trial; the first jury did not reach a verdict. Munyenyezi was serving a 10-year sentence in Alabama and had faced deportation.
She lost her last lawsuit in March, when the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district judge’s rejection of her petition and disputed how the jury was instructed during her trial in federal court in New Hampshire.
Her lawyer, Richard Guerriero, confirmed in an email Saturday that Munyenyezi had been deported to Rwanda. She arrived Friday and was handed over to Rwandan authorities there, according to state media.
“Her deportation means a lot in terms of justice to genocide victims,” said Thierry Murangira, spokesman for the Rwanda Investigation Bureau, according to The New Times.
Munyenyezi is charged with seven crimes related to the genocide, including murder and complicity in rape, according to Rwandan investigators. She will be detained while the investigation continues and her case will be sent to prosecutors, the paper reported.
In the United States, Munyenyezi was convicted of lying about her role as commander of one of the infamous roadblocks where Tutsis were singled out for slaughter. She denied affiliation to any political party, despite the leading role played by her husband, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, in the extremist Hutu militia party.
She filed for a retrial based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that came in 2017, long after her conviction, and limited the government’s ability to deny citizenship to immigrants who lied during the naturalization process.
Munyenyezi alleged that the jury had been given false instructions about her criminal liability. A judge declined her request, saying that even if the instruction was inadequate, the error was harmless.
As part of her appeal, Munyenyezi’s trial attorneys, who are now judges of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, said in court documents that they would have presented Munyenyezi’s case differently if the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision had been law during her trial. .
They added that they believe that if the jury had received instructions based on the court’s decision, “the verdict might have been different.”
“After serving her sentence and losing her appeal, she was expelled from the country,” Guerriero said in a statement. “It is possible that, despite her removal, a new challenge to her conviction may be brought.”
Munyenyezi fled to Nairobi, Kenya, with a young daughter in July 1994 in the last days of the genocide. Four months later she gave birth to twins there. She entered the United States as a refugee and settled in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city.
She got a $ 13-an-hour job with the city’s housing authority and received a college degree in college. She funded a comfortable lifestyle with mortgages, loans, and credit cards, but filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and had forgiven about $ 400,000 in debt.
Ntahobali and his mother have been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes or violence and are serving life. Both were considered high-ranking members of the Hutu militia party, which orchestrated attacks on Tutsis.
US District Judge Steven McAuliffe, who sentenced her, said Munyenyezi was “not just an onlooker”.
He added, “I feel that this defendant was actively involved, actively participating in the mass murder of men, women and children simply because they were Tutsis.”
McAuliffe acknowledged that Munyenyezi had lived a crime-free and productive life since arriving in New Hampshire, but said it was a life under false pretenses.