MADRID, Kenya, Sep 18 – Spain will ask that South Africa extradite former Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who is wanted on charges of genocide and for the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s, the justice ministry said.
Spain\’s National Court in 2008 charged Nyamwasa with genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the lead-up to and during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which 800,000 people were killed.
It also charged him with the murder in Rwanda of a Spanish missionary in 1994 and three Spanish aid workers three years later.
"He took part in systematic and planned attacks against the civilian population, in forced disappearances and crimes against international law, and also organised and carried out terrorist attacks," a ministry statement said.
The justice ministry\’s proposal that Spain request Nyamwasa\’s extradition was approved at a weekly cabinet meeting on Friday, it added.
Nyamwasa fled to South Africa in February after abandoning his post as Rwanda\’s envoy to India.
Four months later he was shot in the stomach outside his home in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb.
His wife Rosette has said she believes Rwandan President Paul Kagame was behind the attack which she has described as a politically motivated assassination attempt.
The Rwandan government has accused Nyamwasa, and former army colonel Patrick Karegeya, of masterminding grenade attacks earlier this year in the run-up to the country\’s presidential elections in August.
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