A U.S. agent removes handcuffs from Rwanda genocide suspect Oswald Rurangwa after he is flown by U.S. authorities to Kigali on Oct. 7, 2021, for transfer to Rwandan police custody. Photo Assumpta Kagoyi/VOA Central Africa Service

KIGALI, RWANDA — An alleged participant in the 1994 Rwandan genocide faces a possible 30 years in prison after U.S. officials deported him to Kigali, where he was taken into custody after his arrival Thursday.

Oswald Rurangwa, 59, escorted by U.S. security officials, was deported to Rwanda on a private jet. U.S. Embassy officials received him at Kigali International Airport and immediately handed him over to Rwandan security staff. Rurangwa was handcuffed and led into a waiting Rwanda Investigation Bureau van.

Speaking to reporters at the airport, Rwanda Prosecution Authority spokesman Faustin Nkusi said Rurangwa was the head of Interahamwe militia in the Gisozi sector, a suburb of Kigali, during the genocide.

"He participated in many acts of the genocide, including planning meetings, joining mobs of attackers, and killing. He committed genocide crimes, complicity to genocide, inciting people to commit genocide, murder and extermination as a crime against humanity," Nkusi said.

"We issued an arrest warrant against him in 2008, but this coincided with the Gacaca [court] ruling that had already been handed down to him. So, the U.S. judicial authorities deported him to serve his sentence here," he added.

In 2007, a Gacaca, or Rwandan community court, tried Rurangwa in absentia, finding him guilty of genocide and sentencing him to 30 years behind bars.

U.S. attorney Charles Kambanda, who is familiar with the case and knowledgeable about legal affairs in Central Africa, said the U.S. had a different rationale for deporting Rurangwa.

"Oswald Rurangwa was sent to Rwanda purely on account of immigration fraud,” the New York state-based attorney told the VOA Central Africa Service. "This means he was deported, not extradited. ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] handed him over."

According to the prosecution, Rurangwa fled Rwanda in 1994 for the Kibumba refugee camp in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. He later moved to another camp, Kayindu, before applying for asylum in the United States in 1996.

Nkusi said Rwandan law permits Rurangwa to have his case retried.

"You have seen that he has been assigned an attorney," Nkusi said, adding that Rurangwa would be informed of the earlier ruling and given a copy of his sentence. "He will also be informed about his right [of appeal] because even though he was sentenced in absentia, he has the right to have the case retried."

Rurangwa was being taken to Mageragere prison, Nkusi said. - Assumpta Kaboyi/Geoffrey Mutagoma, Voice of America

JUBA, South Sudan -- South Sudan has ordered the freezing of bank accounts of five members of a coalition of activists calling for political change.

The People’s Coalition for Civil Action, formed in July, has called for President Salva Kiir and his rival deputy Riek Machar to step down, accusing them of failing the people of South Sudan for a decade of war and fragile peace.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press, the director-general of the government’s banking supervision division on Wednesday directed all commercial banks operating in South Sudan to block accounts belong to the five activists “with immediate effect.”

The statement didn’t give reasons for the order. The Central Bank of South Sudan confirmed the letter. A government spokesman could not be reached.

The order freezes the accounts of Abraham Awolich, former executive director of the Sudd Institute; Rajab Mohandis, executive director for the Organization for Responsive Governance; Wani Michael, former executive director of the Okay Africa Foundation; Jame David Kolok, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy and Accountable Governance and Kuel Aguer Kuel.

Awolich, a co-founder of the coalition, said they would not be deterred by the government’s order, which he called “a war against civil society in South Sudan.”

“This action is an attempt by the government to weaken the members and the PCCA as an organization,” he told the AP, adding that the action has raised the coalition’s profile.

Michael in a social media post called it “unfortunate.”

South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is struggling to recover from a five-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Former rivals Kiir and Machar now lead a government accused by watchdogs of falling behind on implementation of the peace deal. - DENG MACHOL, Associated Press / ABC News

Six international human rights groups – Amnesty International, the Burundi Human Rights Initiative, DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project), Human Rights Watch, Protection International Africa and TRIAL International – condemned the decision of the Court of Appeal of Ngozi on 29 September to uphold the conviction and five-year prison sentence of Burundian lawyer Tony Germain Nkina following an unfair trial.

“Tony Germain Nkina’s trial was a travesty of justice,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. - Amnesty International

Members of Parliament attend proceedings in Juba, South Sudan, August 2, 2021. Photo AFP

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — South Sudan media rights groups condemned comments by a key parliament member who said that news organizations could have their licenses revoked if they report on parliamentary expenditures — including lawmaker salaries — without prior authorization from the speaker.

Paul Youane Bonju, who is the chairperson-designate of the information committee in South Sudan's reconstituted National Legislative Assembly, said journalists risk being sued if they do not follow what he termed the proper procedure for reporting on lawmakers' financial transactions.

"Some [reporters] are new in the field and I need to bring them on board by trying to tell them the right procedures if they visit the parliament, because the parliament is a body that enacts laws," he said in a news conference last week.

"If you are coming to engage with such a body, you must also be conversant of how to go about it," Bonju said. "In some instances, some of the media, instead of coming to me or going to the office of the clerk, sometimes they contact either the staffs, or they get the information from sources that are not authorized to release some of the information."

Bonju cited media reports five years ago about $40,000 that was allotted to lawmakers by President Salva Kiir for allowances and car loans.

The reports about the allotment caused a widespread backlash in the world's newest country, where the government owes many workers back salaries and the average teacher makes less than $400 per year.

Media groups say Bonju's comments are an attempt to conceal information from the public as South Sudan attempts for forge a shaky democracy.

Micheal Duku, executive director of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan, said parliamentary members cannot stop the media from reporting on their work which is in the public interest.

"The media is regulated by law and when it comes to information that is categorized, there are classified information and unclassified information," Duku told VOA's South Sudan in Focus. "So long as this falls under unclassified information, the public has the right to know."

Bonju's comments come as South Sudan journalists are facing increasing pressures on their reporting.

Three journalists recently were detained, and a radio station was closed as the government clamped down on efforts by activists to stage what they called a peaceful public uprising.

Agents also detained a government broadcaster after he allegedly declined to report news about recent presidential decrees on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation airwaves.

South Sudan ranks 139th out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, in which 1 is the freest.

The reconstituted legislature was inaugurated in August this year by Kiir under the leadership of Jemma Nunu Kumba as speaker of the house.

In an interview with South Sudan in Focus, Bonju said his comments were aimed at clarifying parliamentary procedures for press coverage.

"I was telling them, 'Look, I am not warning you, but I am rather cautioning you to be sure that if you want anything to do with emolument of the MPs, please contact the relevant offices, the relevant departments,'" he said. - Waakhe Simon Wudu, Voice of America