Rwandan genocide suspects Fulgence Kayishema, who was recently arrested in South Africa, on Tuesday abandoned his application for bail in a Cape Town court and applied for political asylum.
Kayishema Fulgence has abandoned his bail application and will today lodge an asylum application, as he fears for his life if he is extradited,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Fulgence Kayishema, who has been on the run since 2001, was arrested last May under an assumed name at a wine farm in Paarl in the Western Cape, where he was working as a security guard. Kayishema had been hounded for years by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The current charges against Kayishema stem from allegations that he assumed a false identity and misrepresented his nationality. The State maintains that in January 2000, the accused assumed the identity of another person, falsely claiming to be a Burundian national. Similar behavior occurred in 2004 when he applied for official refugee status. In addition, it is alleged that Kayishema remained in the country illegally.
Kayishema is alleged to have orchestrated, on 15 April 1994, the murder of around 2,000 Tutsi refugees, including women and children, inside a church located in the commune of Kivumu (76 km from Kigali), during the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis.