On Tuesday afternoon 8 September 2020, by order of the Public Prosecutor, the police department’s International Crimes Division arrested C.N., a Dutchman of Rwandese descent, and brought him to police station. This took place following a request from the Rwandese authorities, which requested the extradition of C.N. in 2010 and 2019. In Rwanda, C.N. has been accused of participating in the 1994-genocide. The Public Prosecutor had assumed that C.N.’s Dutch citizenship had been revoked.
C.N. was released the next morning; the extradition process was stopped before it had even begun. As it turned out, the question of C.N.’s Dutch citizenship was the subject of an ongoing procedure that had commenced in 2012. The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (‘IND’) had misinformed the Public Prosecutor. Dutch nationals cannot be extradited to Rwanda.
C.N. is a known board member of the Rwandese opposition in exile. The regime in Rwanda battles its opposition using both legal and illegal means; assassinations and disappearances of opponents both in Rwanda and abroad have been attributed to the Kagame-regime on multiple occasions. The chairwoman of FDU-Inkingi, the party of which C.N. is board member, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for noting in public that may Hutu’s were killed during the genocide in 1994.
C.N. denies all allegations against him. Hij asserts that the sole purpose of these accusations is to make it impossible for him to function as an opponent and criticaster of the Kagame-regime, the silence him and to make his family live in fear and insecurity. Sooner or later, all critics of Kagame meet this fate.
C.N. is represented in his procedure by lawyer Marq Wijngaarden.