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Home > News > Energy

Suspects in massacre seek U.S. asylum

After charges dropped, Rwandans ask for haven

By Jerry Seper and Jim McElhatton, THE WASHINGTON TIMES | Sunday, August 17, 2008

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Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff announced the March 2003 arrests with much fanfare: Three Rwandan rebels had confessed to brutally killing two American tourists on a safari vacation in a Ugandan national park four years earlier and would finally be brought to the United States to stand trial in the savage deaths.

Francois Karake, Gregoire Nyaminani and Leonidas Bimenyimana, all members of the Liberation Army of Rwanda, had been indicted a week earlier by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on charges of murder and conspiracy in the killings of Robert Haubner, 48, and his wife, Susan Miller, 42, in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park on March 1, 1999.

The American couple, who worked for Intel Corp. in Portland, Ore., where they also lived, had been kidnapped by more than 150 Rwandan rebels who scouted the rugged park in southwestern Uganda for several days, targeting for death more than a dozen English-speaking tourists.

The couple had been visiting - for the third time, counting their honeymoon - one of the richest ecosystems in Africa, the home to nearly 1,000 species of mammals, birds, trees, ferns, frogs and geckos, and a sanctuary for the Bwindi gorillas, which holds about half of the world's population of the critically endangered animal.

Bwindi is a remote, rain-forest area in the extreme southwestern region of Uganda near the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. It was a place the Oregon couple had come to love.

But in a brutal killing frenzy, the couple and 13 other unsuspecting travelers were kidnapped and force-marched into the jungle, where the two Americans and six other tourists - four British citizens and two New Zealanders - were savagely beaten, hacked and bludgeoned to death with axes and machetes.

Their Ugandan guide was burned alive.

"This indictment should serve as a warning," said Mr. Chertoff, who at the time headed the Justice Department's criminal division. "Those who commit acts of terror against Americans will be hunted, captured and brought to justice."

That ominous warning was never followed up. After a judge ruled the confessions inadmissible in 2006, the case fell apart.

Now, the three Rwandans are seeking political asylum in the United States and, ironically, Mr. Chertoff has moved from Justice to Homeland Security, where as secretary he now oversees the agency that must decide whether to grant those requests.

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  • Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni discusses in Kampala the massacre of foreign tourists. He vowed that Ugandan forces will pursue and capture or kill Rwandan rebels who butchered eight foreign tourists.
  • Jean Paul Bizimana (center) discusses his case with his translator in an empty courtroom at the Ugandan High Court in Kampala as he awaits his sentence. He received 15 years after calls by prosecutors for the death penalty were rejected. He said after the judgment was passed that the sentence was "unfair, unjust and politically motivated." Although he accepted being part of the gang that carried out the attack, he claimed he was not directly involved or responsible for any of the deaths. His lawyer said he may consider appealing against the judgment.
  • An Australian tourist who survived the attack on a group of foreigners in Uganda is escorted by embassy officials before leaving Uganda at Entebbe airport.
  • Associated Press
U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said the confessions were "extracted" after repeated questioning, lengthy periods of solitary confinement, torture and other physical abuse, adding that U.S. prosecutors could refile the charges only if they obtained additional evidence.
  • @PullQuote:This is a message left by the killers of eight tourists on one of the bodies in the Bwindi park. It was released by the Ugandan army. The translation reads: "This is the fate for the Anglo-Saxons who betrayed us, favoring the Nilitic people over the Bantu cultivators. If you don't understand through these lessons, it is because you do not want to understand. You will understand through the forces of nature." "Nilitic" is a pejorative term for Tutsis by the Hutus. This was written on the back of a postcard showing a bird.
  • Swiss-born tourist Daniel Walthers (left) arrives at a Nairobi airport from Uganda. He is one of the tourists who survived the attack on a group of foreign tourists on a gorilla-watching safari in Uganda. Two Americans, four Britons and two New Zealanders, together with Ugandan guards, were killed - some hacked to death - in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park by members of Rwandan Hutu death squads.

Click the photo to enlarge. « Previous | Next »

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