German prosecutors announced the arrest of a German-Rwandan national suspected of being an accomplice in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were systematically massacred by Hutu extremists.

The suspect, identified only as Innocent S. under German privacy rules, was arrested in the central state of Hesse. He is accused of giving orders for the deaths of 25 Tutsis while serving as an assistant to the mayor of Kayove in northwestern Rwanda.

Prosecutors allege that the suspect personally participated in one murder, stabbing a victim in the chest with a knife. He is also said to have drawn up death lists and incited the killing of Tutsis in the town.

In April 1994, Hutu militias began slaughtering the Tutsi ethnic minority following a months-long hate campaign backed by the government. The 100-day genocide was marked by numerous atrocities and widespread sexual violence.

The international community did little to stop the mass killings, which ended only when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-dominated force led by current President Paul Kagame, defeated the extremist Hutu government in July.

Germany has previously prosecuted several suspects linked to the genocide under the principle of universal jurisdiction, allowing German courts to try certain serious international crimes regardless of where they were committed.

Source: www.dw.com