A Rwandan Hutu rebel leader wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crime charges has been shot dead by the Congolese army, a DRC military
spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Sylvestre Mudacumura, commander of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) that has often been accused of committing atrocities, was “definitively neutralised” in DRC’s North Kivu province on Tuesday night, General Leon-Richard Kasonga told AFP.
FDLR leaders are accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda.
That year, during just 100 days, ethnic Hutu extremists killed about 800,000 people as they set out to exterminate Rwanda’s minority Tutsi community and their political opponents.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr Mudacumura in 2012 for nine counts of war crimes, including murder, rape and torture.
He was a senior member of Rwanda’s presidential guard during the 1994
genocide, before he fled across the
Congolese border.
The Rwandan government cited the FDLR’s presence on Congolese soil to justify repeated interventions across that border.
