(Newser)
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It's a rough day to be a war criminal. Bernard Munyagishari, a driving force behind the campaign of mass rape and genocide that ripped Rwanda apart, has been caught after 17 years on the run, confirms the UN. The former Hutu militia leader was arrested in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo by the Congolese army and a tracking unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, reports the Guardian.
Although never an official member of the Rwandan armed forces, Munyagishari is accused of co-founding, recruiting, distributing weapons to, and training the Interahamwe group that slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus between April and June 1994. He also allegedly created an arm of the group whose mission was solely to rape and kill women. The US state department had placed a $5 million bounty on Munyagishari, who is being held in Goma awaiting transfer to Tanzania. Click here for the ICTR's indictment of Munyagishari.
