A man wanted for nearly three decades for allegedly participating in the Rwandan genocide was recently discovered living illegally in the United States.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security, and federal court records, Eric Tabaro Nshimiye both ordered and carried out rapes and brutal murders, including of young children and female college students, as part of the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Rwandans. He is accused of beating to death some of his victims with a nail-studded club while hacking others to death with a machete.
In charging documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) detailed how the 52-year-old went from carrying out grisly murders and rapes to living as a family man in suburban Uniontown, Ohio, just a year later.
The 100-day killing spree was one of the most vicious ethnic cleansing genocides of modern times. It was carried out by radical Hutus and armed Hutu militias against the Tutsi people. Moderate Hutus and a pygmy people called the Twa were also targeted.
Several major movies have been made about the genocide, including the three-time Oscar-nominated drama “Hotel Rwanda.”
Mr. Nshimiye is identified in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DOJ documents as a member of the National Revolutionary Movement for Development group—a Hutu-dominated political party that incited the genocide. He is also identified as a member of the Interahamwe, a violent paramilitary organization made up mostly of young men.
Mr. Nshimiye was able to obtain asylum status by claiming that he was an immigrant fleeing the genocide, HSI documents show.
Matthew Langille, an HSI special agent, wrote in an affidavit that Mr. Nshimiye was granted refugee status and, ultimately, U.S. citizenship by falsifying immigration documents and making false statements.
Among those was a claim that his father was killed in the genocide, which investigators say was a lie.
“Based in part on NSHIMIYE’s false statements and his continued concealment of his role during the Rwandan genocide, NSHIMIYE’s Application for Naturalization was approved on December 13, 2002. NSHIMIYE was naturalized as a United States citizen on or about April 18, 2003, and was issued a Department of Homeland Security Certificate of Naturalization,” Mr. Langille wrote in his affidavit.
Multiple federal and state agencies, including several Ohio law enforcement agencies, the Fraud Detection and National Security Division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, HSI, and the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, were involved in Mr. Nshimiye’s apprehension and the investigation into his whereabouts.
According to Michael J. Krol, the agent in charge of the investigation, the agencies spent years retracing Mr. Nshimiye’s alleged involvement in the Rwandan genocide.
They also interviewed many survivors of the atrocities, including those who gave direct accounts of being victims of brutality at the hands of Mr. Nshimiye. Historians were used as part of the investigation, according to charging documents in the case.
“Nshimiye is accused of lying to conceal his participation in one of the greatest human tragedies of all time,” Mr. Krol said.
The charges against Mr. Nshimiye include perjury; obstruction of justice; aiding and abetting; and falsifying, concealing, and covering up material by trick, scheme, or device.
He faces more than 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 on the charges.
One witness described to federal investigators how he watched Mr. Nshimiye beat to death a 14-year-old boy using a spiked club as other Hutus killed the boy’s mother.
Others accused Mr. Nshimiye of helping to round up between 25 and 30 Tutsi, killing them, and then burning their bodies in a forest.
A female witness described being raped repeatedly by Mr. Nshimiye and said he later killed her two young children by hacking them to death.
He is also accused of organizing a gang rape of six female university students and of leading searches for Tutsis hiding in hospitals, churches, and school buildings.
According to investigators, Mr. Nshimiye committed most of his alleged heinous acts while he was an undergraduate medical student at the University of Rwanda in Butare.
Prior to the 1994 genocide, federal agents say Mr. Nshimiye participated in weapons training on the university’s campus and was known to carry grenades.
It would be only a year later, in 1995, that he would be granted refugee status. He became a naturalized citizen in 2003 and soon after landed a job with a major U.S. tire manufacturer.
Mr. Nshimiye is also accused of giving false information to help another alleged participant in the Rwanda genocide gain U.S. citizenship.
