HARARE — Zimbabwe police said Tuesday they have launched a manhunt for a top Rwanda genocide fugitive, Protais Mpiranya, suspected to be in the southern African country.
"We are trying to locate him," chief superintendent Peter Magwenzi of the police homicide section told AFP.
"We want him dead or alive. We are looking for information to arrest him, we don't know how long he has been in the country."
Police said Mpiranya is believed to be using several aliases that include a local name Patrick Sambo while keeping a low profile.
Zimbabwe's immigration had last year denied having records that Mpiranya, who was in charge of the presidential guard battalion during the genocide, was in the country.
The UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which wraps up its work in 2014, has placed a $5 million bounty on Mpiranya's head.
In July sources from the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which takes over from the ICTR, said Mpiranya enjoyed protection from senior Zimbabwean officials.
Mpiranya is wanted to answer charges of genocide in 1994 against the minority Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda, which led to the killing of 800,000 people in 100 days, according to the United Nations.
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
