The US Department of Justice said he was sentenced to 97 months in prison, after which he was expected to be deported to Rwanda.
A Rwandan man convicted in the United States for concealing his alleged involvement in the 1994 genocide has been deported to Rwanda, where he has been received by state prosecutors.
Jean Leonard Teganya, 55, was handed over to Rwanda’s National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) on Monday following his deportation from the US, according to a statement issued by the prosecution agency.
“The National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) today received Teganya Jean Leonard following his deportation from the United States of America,” the statement reads.
Teganya’s return comes more than three decades after the 1994 genocide, during which an estimated 800,000 people, most of them members of the Tutsi community, were killed in about 100 days of violence.
At the time, Teganya was a medical student at the National University of Rwanda and a member of the ruling MRND party, which was dominated by Hutus.
Court records indicate that during the genocide, he led groups of soldiers and pro-government youths through a hospital to identify Tutsi patients and refugees, who were subsequently killed. He was also linked to the killings of seven Tutsis and the rape of two Tutsi women.
Teganya fled Rwanda in July 1994, shortly after the genocide, travelling through several African countries before moving to India and later Canada.
He applied for asylum in Canada in 1999, but his stay there was eventually threatened by a deportation order. In 2014, he left the country to avoid being deported and entered the United States, where he subsequently sought asylum.
However, his application in the US exposed him to further legal trouble after authorities established that he had concealed his alleged activities during the genocide and his membership of the MRND party.
In April 2019, Teganya was convicted on two counts of immigration fraud and three counts of perjury for providing false information about his background and alleged role in the genocide while seeking asylum.
Alupo Moves to Meet Museveni With Teso MPs Amid Muhoozi’s Vice-President Speculation
The US Department of Justice said he was sentenced to 97 months in prison, after which he was expected to be deported to Rwanda.
His deportation now places him back in the country where the alleged atrocities occurred, with the NPPA confirming that he has been received by the authorities.
Teganya’s case is part of Rwanda’s continuing pursuit of genocide suspects who fled abroad after the 1994 killings.
In another development, Francois Gasana, a Rwandan genocide suspect, was extradited from Norway to Rwanda last year to face charges over his alleged involvement in the massacres.