Laurent Nkunda “illegally detained”

Former Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda is being illegally detained by the Rwandan government, says his lawyer. Nkunda has been living under house arrest in Kigali for over a year without any trial in sight.

By Thijs Bouwknegt
“If you believe that the man is a danger or a risk to peace, then you have to make your case in court. But you can’t just do that arbitrarily without making your case,” says Stephane Bourgon who is representing Nkunda.

Bourgon adds that Rwandan authorities have even refused to grant him access to his client. “This is a total violation of every international instrument to which Rwanda is a party to, and this is very bad.”

Nkunda led the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a group purported to protect minority Tutsis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His arrest was key to a deal between Kinshasa and Kigali to crush the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a splinter group of Rwanda’s former Hutu militia.

Kinshasa issued an arrest warrant for Nkunda in September 2005, charging him with desertion and war crimes. Bourgon says Nkunda is not scared of being sent to Congo to be tried if there are valid accusations and charges against him. But the indictments “have expired and have not yet been re-validated, nor have any new arrest warrants been issued.”

Rwanda’s Supreme Court again postponed a hearing on Nkunda’s release to March 1st. “They are basically doing everything they can to let the world forget about him. They don’t know what to do with him,” concludes Bourgon.

Human Rights Watch accused Nkunda’s CNDP of massacring more than 150 people in Kiwanja in late 2008.
Also read the earlier report: Laurent Nkunda's fate still unclear

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