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| Great White North |
| Canadian Court Bars |
| 2003-09-09 |
| Edited and rewritten to make sense. A Canadian appeals court ruled Monday that a former Rwandan government official accused of inciting genocide can remain in Canada, saying no evidence suggests his speech caused the 1994 massacres. "Your Honor, that ’kill the Tutsis, kill the Tutsis, die die DIE!’ was jes’ a figger o’ speech!" Leon Mugesera was accused of encouraging attacks on Rwanda’s Tutsi minority in a speech in 1992. At the time, he was an adviser to President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose death in a plane crash in April 1994 sparked the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. An adviser who somehow wasn’t on the plane when it crashed. How, er, convenient. Mugesera, who moved to Spain and then Canada before the genocide began, has been accused by human-rights groups of facilitating war crimes and inciting the Hutu-sponsored killings in the tiny central African nation. Mugesera had appealed two deportation orders by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. On Monday, a three-member Federal Appeals Court panel unanimously rejected the accusation. ``There is nothing in the evidence to indicate that Mr. Mugesera, under the cover of anecdotes or imagery, deliberately incited to murder, hatred or genocide,’’ Justice Robert Decary wrote. According to evidence submitted to the immigration and refugee board, Mugesera, a Hutu, gave a speech in November 1992 calling for the extermination of Tutsis. But there were no anecdotes or imagery, so he’s okay. Opponents of Mugesera want him sent back to Rwanda to face trial. If deported, he would be sent to Spain, the country he came from when he originally entered Canada. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-9 4:34:44 PM |
| #4 |
| Posted by: Katz 2003-9-9 4:12:16 PM |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-9-9 2:32:29 PM |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-9 2:05:40 PM |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-9-9 7:30:08 AM |