Fulgence Kayishema – lawyers Gibson and Larochelle play for time (and money) …

UPDATE 1 DECEMBER 2025
Rwanda wants him tried in Kigali, the UN Mechanism wants him tried in Kigali – but to no surprise Kayishema and his motley band of international and South African lawyers are trying every tactic – legal and otherwise to frustrate and delay and such eventuality, arguing any trial should take place in Arusha at the hugely expensive and never yet used Mechanism court there – or in South Africa.
The latest in a long line of fabrications and ruses this Autumn was to allege that Kayishema had been targeted by Rwandan-government assassins in prison! An ‘unnamed’ source reported such a threat to the South African authorities who felt duty bound to move Kayishema as a result; of course this ‘threat’ was then publicised by his lawyers as a reason he could not possibly be sent to Rwanda. An investigation by SA intelligence has since reported ‘the information came from a rogue source and was without substance… it is the strong suspicion of Crime intelligence that the threat was likely orchestrated by individuals with an ulterior motive.’ As a result Kayishema was returned to his usual prison routine.
Added to this is a so far highly effective ploy to play off South African and International jurisdictions against each other. On 29 October 2025, the Mechanism dismissed three of the four grounds of Kayishema’s revocation Request and request for his international legal team to be put on the Mechanism legal gravy train of fees. Why should UN taxpayers pay them given their ‘client’ was furiously refusing to even agree to being transferred to the Mechanism and its jurisdiction?
Up next – a decision on whether the alleged genocidaire will finally come under the jurisdiction of International Justice – and then whether that will take place in Rwanda, where the horrific massacres Kayishema is alleged to have led, took place. It is already 2.5 years since his arrest – and 31 years since the genocide. The only source of comfort for survivors is that this suspect is behind bars. The question remains will international justice be able to live up to its much hyped remit and put in the dock for the world to see those accused of the most heinous crimes.

4 July 2025
One year on and justice is nowhere on the horizon for 64-year old former gendarme Kayishema. Yet another sorry tale of how international law and lawyers make a mockery of their alleged role in bringing justice to those who have had their lives (and bodies) ripped apart. Over the past year Kayishema has been enjoying life in the Pollsmoor Correctional facility in Cape Town. His family were quick to send out a legal SOS to recruit the ever-willing and quite prolific international defence lawyers Philippe Larochelle and Kate Gibson. Both have long CVs representing some of the very worst genocidaire at the ICTR and MICT – very highly paid, lucrative, work, of course. Currently they are working ‘pro bono’ ie free, but are now demanding the Mechanism pay them as Kayishema ‘needs’ their assistance.
Their main aim – to block Kayishema being sent by South Africa to the UN Mechanism who have made it clear they will hand him over to Rwanda to stand trial in Kigali.

On 1 July the Mechanism office for the Prosecutor noted: ‘Kayishema is using potential revocation proceedings before the Mechanism to block his transfer from South Africa to Mechanism custody. These Filings further demonstrate that he is providing partial and inconsistent information to—and is engendering delays in—both courts…. Kayishema is not being forthcoming or transparent to either court. Rather, he is attempting to manipulate the proceedings in each jurisdiction to try to force a specific outcome in the other, including by transparently leading the South African court astray.19 Until Kayishema is in Mechanism custody, the President should not entertain Kayishema’s re-styled attempt to obtain legal aid funding or any other relief through the assignment of a Trial Chamber’.
In sum – play off the two very different national/international legal systems and their different requirements against each other and pocket the injustice that results… keeping their client in Cape Town while getting paid a chiefly sum in recompense… everyone is happy – oh, except that is for the 2,000 + dead Kayishema is said to have murdered.

For those with a strong stomach, have a read of the ICTR judgment of the genocidal Roman Catholic Priest Athanase SEROMBA with whom Kayishema is said to have worked in organising and killing the Tutsis – men, women, children and babies crammed inside Seromba’s church – witnesses at Seromba’s trial told the court Kayishema beat a woman to death with a brick and ordered a caterpillar truck to knock down Nyanga church building with thousands of  terrified, starving and wounded refugees inside….

Update: 4 June 2024:
A clearly exasperated UN Mechanism prosecutor had taken aim at both South Africa and Fulgence Kayishema for blocking the genocide accused being sent to Arusha where he faces justice for his horrific alleged crimes. Arrested more than a year ago, Kayishema has been assisted by a disastrously ineffective and incompetent Cape Town justice system which spent months scrabbling about looking into Kayishema’s various immigration frauds (false id’s etc), while failing spectacularly to notice here was a man who was wanted on a UN arrest warrant accused of bulldozing a church on top of 2,000 Tutsis in 1994. Kayishema’s latest strategy is to demand to see all the information the UN prosecutors have about him – purely it seems to use as a way to avoid being sent to Arusha. Unsurprisingly, UN prosecutors have responded he has no right to this information – but he can have it once he is in custody in Arusha. Added to which the UN may then choose to send him to Rwanda ‘which can provide reliable guarantees of a fair trial.’ The delay in justice is a testimony to the way countries have played politics with justice – sadly South Africa continues to perpetuate this and rides roughshod over the rights of victims and survivors of genocide.

Update: 25 March 2024:
At the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town there was more frustration as the two day hearing to begin what promises to be a long and expensive extradition process to get Kayishema sent to Arusha to stand trial before the UN Mechanism was postponed. No new date has been set – though Rwandajustice4genocide will seek to find some clarification of what’s happening.

Update: 16 February
It has taken 10 months of tortuous and expensive legal wrangling but a glimmer of light has finally arrived in the case of genocide suspect Fulgence Kayishema. At the latest legal hearing of his case on 16th February prosecutors moved to centralise all the local charges against him so they could be dealt with by one court. They include allegations that he used false names for employment, travel and health care, such as pretending to be a Malawian named Positano Chikuse, and Burundians named Donatien Nibasumba and Fulgence Denied Minani.
More importantly. he will return to court later in March as the first efforts are made to extradite him to Tanzania to stand trial in the newly built – but so far hardly used – court house of the UN Mechanism, in Arusha. The charges here are of the most serious kind – that in collusion with the priest Fr Athanase Seromba, Kayishema assisted the killing of more than 2,000 Tutsis hiding in the Parish Church building in Nyange. Seromba is already serving life for this atrocity.

Update: 13 December:
The case creaks onwards – it seems even his supporters and family are bored with it and did not show up in court in Cape Town for Kayishema’s latest appearance on 13 December. Clutching a bible, as usual (one wonders if he clutched this during the genocide in 1994?), the man accused of horrific atrocities sat quietly while legal wrangling eventually decided that he should return to court on 16th February 2024 when a decision will be made where the case will be heard – at magistrates, regional or High Court. He is fighting 56 charges relating to immigration offences and attempting to stave off eventual extradition to the UN Mechanism in Arusha, Tanzania, to face trial for genocide. Prosecutors told the court at his latest hearing that they had finally finished all their work.

UPDATE 30 October 2023:
Five months on from his arrest and the wheels of justice are barely turning when it comes to getting alleged mass murderer Fulgence Kayishema in the dock to face justice. Still held in Helderstroom prison in the Western Cape, near where he was arrested in May, defence lawyers, prosecutors and a judge have been arguing over the state of play when it comes to the two charges against Kayishema: Using several different names during his life in South Africa for the past twenty years so breaking both the immigration and refugee act as well as fraud; and second, on 15 August, Kayishema was rearrested in the prison under an international arrest warrant demanding he be extradited to face charges in Arusha, Tanzania where the United National Residual Mechanism resides. And interestingly, as a sub plot to the many other political and judicial ‘worms’ in this particular case, it seems back in 2019 UN Mechanism prosecutors secretly asked  their bosses for Kayishema’s case (if he was arrested) to be transferred back to Arusha rather than be heard in Rwanda. Why? Because an unnamed country (i.e. South Africa) would not let UN prosecutors arrest this suspect genocidaire in order for him to be deported to stand trial in Kigali given the two countries were on very poor diplomatic relations. i.e. ‘Justice’ only on South Africa’s terms. And, of course, it gives the ‘White Elephant’ court house, built at the cost of millions of dollars in Arusha, the possibility of finally holding a case.
For more on this judicial/political shambles and horse-trading see: ‘What’s happening in the Kayishema case’ Justiceinfo.net.
Back to Kayishema’s latest appearance in court of 29 October, it seemed nothing had moved forward from his appearance two months earlier. The prosecution, while charging the accused with 56 counts of immigration fraud, have yet to produce evidence, and continue to tell the judge they are awaiting documents to appear. Kayishema, clutching a bible and waving to family and friends in the public gallery remains, however, behind bars while the case drags out.
In August, Judge Robert Hanley noted with surprise that despite the new arrest and charge there was no paperwork or legal application for extradition before him. He demanded this be filled in and put before him as soon as possible otherwise the case would be thrown out. Thankfully, Kayishema remains in prison while prosecutors and defence argue over next moves. However, the current progress bodes ill for Kayishama facing justice anytime soon for his suspected role in the killing of thousands of Tutsis at Nyangwe Church alongside convicted genocidaire priest Anathase Seromba. The next court appearance of Kayishema pencilled in for 27 October. His family have also be warned they need to produce good reasons why their own refugee status should not be cancelled given they are alleged to be complicit in the identity lies that enabled the suspect to remain hidden in the country.

At a previous hearing in June:

Kayishema’s lawyer Juan Smuts announced that Kayishema was going to claim political asylum in South Africa – a ploy to stop or at least delay the extradition process that is underway that survivors hope will see him answer for his alleged crimes in a court – either in The Hague or in Rwanda. On 20th June, at his latest court appearance, Kayishema waved and smiled to family as he was led into court, giving a thumbs-up sign. South African prosecutors have charged him with fraud related to his time in the country, and will also want the extradition case to be heard promptly. However, the case was adjourned for two months until 18 August.

Background

On 24 May 2023, Fulgence Kayishema, one of the last major fugitives of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi wanted by the UN, was arrested in an operation between the UN genocide tracking team and South African police. Kayishema is thought to have been in South Africa for 23 years, having arrived around 2000 using one of many fake names he used after fleeing Rwanda in 1994 at the end of the genocide against the Tutsi. Given the very poor political relationship between the South African authorities and the UN ICTR and then its successor, the IRMCT, as well as Rwanda, genocide tracking teams have not been able to follow up leads in the country until recently when a new era of cooperation began. In 2018 South Africa was alerted that Kayishema was in the country but authorities failed to act allowing the alleged killer to go to ground yet again. It took another five years to relocate him. The arrest, though many years overdue, shows how the tracking teams work is reliant on states fully cooperating with it – and how significant results can be made when this happens.

Kayishema made his first appearance in court on 26 May in Cape Town.
On 2nd June he briefly appeared again before magistrates where further charges against him were laid, that include 5 counts of immigration fraud – using a fake name and saying he was from Burundi when he applied for asylum in January 2000 and again in 2004. On 9 June this was upgraded by prosecutors to 54 charges. Kayishema remains in custody while investigations continue. Behind the scenes the UN makes preparations to formally have him extradited first to The Hague, and then probably on to Rwanda to stand trial. With the UN trial of Félicien Kabuga has recently descended into farce and has been abandoned due to the old age of the accused, the UN will be anxious the hard work to capture the alleged mass murderer Kayishema does not go to waste yet again.

In South Africa, Kayishema used the name Donatien Nibasumba and worked on a farm in Paarl in the Western Cape. When arrested he at first denied he was Kayishema but later admitted he was the genocide suspect, telling the Americian and British leads of the tracking team that ‘I have known for a long time that one day I would be arrested.’

Kayishema, 62, a former gendarme (police) commander, is suspected of assisting the killing of thousands of Tutsis, especially at the parish of Kivumu, alongside the interahahmwe and the Catholic priest Fr Anastase Seromba. In 2008 Seromba was convicted at the ICTR for genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. He said he was ‘sorry’ for the killings but has denied taking any part in the genocide. At the time of his arrest American authorities had a $5 million bounty on his head for information leading to his capture.

The Residual Mechanism agreed that all its remaining cases should now be transferred to Kigali, and it is expected that Kayishema will be flown first to The Hague, when extradition proceedings from South Africa are carried though, and then on to rwanda to stand trial.

Since 2020, the UN Fugitive Tracking Team has accounted for the whereabouts of five fugitives, including Félicien Kabuga (on trial), Augustin Bizimana (dead), Protais Mpiranya (dead), and Phéneas Munyarugarama dead). There are now only three outstanding fugitives – Aloys Ndimbati, Charles Sikubwabo and Ryandikayo.