Rwanda genocide suspect had Malawian passport
A case involving Charles Bandora, one of the 1994 Rwandese key genocide suspects, has exposed lapses in Malawi’s immigration system following revelations that he had been using a Malawian passport to run away from facing justice.
But in an interview on Tuesday, Malawi’s Immigration Department spokesperson Martha Sanyala said going by the period that Bandora fled the country, it is clear that he used the old passport which she said had many reported cases of forgery than the new version of the document introduced in June 2010.
“We used to have cases of lost passports being forged or times when owners would sell their passports and report them as lost to be replaced. However, since the new passports were introduced, we have not had many of such cases,” she said.
Sanyala said her office would investigate to establish how Bandora obtained the Malawian passport.
Bandora was first arrested in Malawi in January 2010 by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) following The Nation on Sunday report that exposed his base in Lilongwe’s Area 2 where he was operating a shop.
Bandora spent some time in Malawi operating a shop in Lilongwe and one time courted controversy after he was arrested in connection with the war crimes against humanity only to have the Malawi Police release him on bail under unclear circumstances.
Court documents from Rwanda’s High Court in Kigali indicate that during the run, which started in 2010 when Bandora jumped bail and fled the country, the suspect had been using a Malawian passport in the name of Charles Kamwana.
The Malawian passport enabled him to travel out of Malawi to Zimbabwe from where he left for Belgium.
In May 2010, Bandora was arrested as he tried to enter Belgium, but was released again under unclear grounds. By then, he was travelling on his Malawian passport which had Norwegian visa, according to a report on a Trial website, a site that tracks international genocide suspects and report on progress of their cases.
Bandora was later arrested in Norway at the airport on June 9, 2010 on suspicion of travelling under a fake passport. On July 11 2011, the Oslo Tribunal accepted the request for Bandora’s extradition forwarded by Rwandan authorities.
The High Court records and newspaper reports from Rwanda indicate that Bandora admitted to have forged the Malawian passport to enable him to travel to Belgium where it is said his children live.
“I am a businessperson and was arrested in Malawi due to issues related to my businesses. When I was released, I didn’t have Malawian citizenship yet I needed to move to Belgium and this (is) how I used a forged passport, which is why I was arrested in Belgium,” Bandora is quoted on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) news website.
Bandora’s case is in the High Court in Kigali following his appeal over a ruling by the country’s Nyarugenge Intermediate Court to have the suspect remanded to prison after he applied to be given bail.
In the High Court appeal case, the prosecution team, led by the Head of the Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit (HGFTU) John Bosco Siboyintore, has used the forged Malawian passport as one of the grounds not to release Bandora on bail, arguing that if released, he is capable of fleeing again.
“When he was arrested in Malawi and provisionally released, he fled to Belgium and after he was detained there and later granted bail, he fled to Norway who later extradited him. This is clear proof that he can even escape and by the way, he entered Belgium using a forged passport in the name of Charles Kamwana,” Siboyintore is said to have told the High Court.
The High Court is yet to make a ruling on the appeal against the remand. Bandora was a high-ranking member of that country’s National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) party in Bugesera.
Bandora is being accused of having ordered the killing of 400 Tutsis who had sought refuge at one of the churches and also the killing of the then prominent politician Ezekiel Mugenzi.
