The minister of foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo has confirmed on her twitter that the Genocide suspect Leon Mugesera is en route to Rwanda.
Mugesera was taken to Montreal’s international airport after being given a few hours to have left the Canadian soil not beyond 4pm Canadian time.
“Leon Mugesera’s deportation, while decades past due, is welcome news for a people committed to healing and justice,” Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in a Tweet.
“Canada did the right thing.”Mushikiwabo added.
She thanked Canadians, whom she said saw through an international legal labyrinth and decided Mugesera must go.
According to eye witnesses, his relatives stood crying as they looked on, while Mugesera leaves the Montreal International Airport as Canadian border-services agents were standby to deport him.
The longstanding legal battle of over 16 years to avoid deportation ended this Monday morning and is expected to arrive Monday night.
The news came after Quebec Superior Court justice Michel Delorme issued a ruling against Mugesera on Monday morning.
Mugesera’s lawyers had asked the court to hold off on his deportation until the United Nations could investigate claims that he would face torture if returned to his homeland.
However, Delorme decided Monday the decision was not within his jurisdiction.
Mugesera, 59, is wanted in Rwanda for allegedly inciting genocide and committing crimes against humanity, and has been fighting to stay in Canada for 16 years.
His deportation was all but imminent last week, when his lawyers made a last minute bid to keep him in the country by appealing to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
The UN committee then requested that Canada hold off on making a decision until it could examine the allegations, a process that would have likely have taken a few months.
That prompted the provincial court to stay the deportation order while the legal implications of the UN request could be assessed.
Federal lawyers argued on Friday, however, that the provincial court didn’t have the jurisdiction to rule on immigration cases a stance that Delorme ultimately agreed with on Monday, saying such decisions were in the realm of the federal court.
His is accused of inflammatory speech Mugesera gave in 1992 calling on Hutus to rid the country of Tutsis, whom he called cockroaches.
The quick developments on Monday began to appear grim for Mugesera when he missed a detention review hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board.
ENDS
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