Ohio man charged with lying about role in Rwandan genocide

A Rwandan-born Ohio man was arrested on Thursday on charges he engaged in a scheme to conceal his involvement in the African nation’s 1994 genocide.

BOSTON — A Rwandan-born Ohio man was arrested on Thursday on charges he engaged in a three-decade scheme to conceal his involvement in the African nation’s 1994 genocide to enter the United States as a refugee and ultimately gain U.S. citizenship.

Federal prosecutors in Boston said that for years, Eric Nshimiye, 52, hid the fact that he participated in the massacre by the hard-line Hutu regime of an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during three months of slaughter.

In fact, he participated in the killings including by striking victims on the head with a nail-studded club before hacking them to death with a machete, prosecutors alleged.

Years later, after settling in Ohio, Nshimiye sought to derail any investigation into his scheme by lying at the immigration fraud trial of a former classmate who prosecutors have accused of also participating in the atrocities.

“Our refuge and asylum laws exist to protect true victims of persecution -- not the perpetrators,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy of Massachusetts said in a statement.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-man-charged-lying-role-rwandan-genocide-rcna144601

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