Rwandan accused of genocide begs to stay in Canada

OTTAWA - A Rwandan accused of inciting murder, extermination and genocide pleaded for the right to stay in Canada on Wednesday lest he be killed or tortured if the Supreme Court of Canada sent him back.

In a court hearing that played out the drama of the Rwandan conflict of a decade ago, the lawyer for Leon Mugesera said Mugesera, a Hutu, was a man of integrity who had sheltered ethnic Tutsis during the genocide, and who had Tutsis in his extended family.

The Canadian government was appealing a lower court decision that said there was not enough evidence that a speech Mugesera made in Rwanda in 1992 was a crime against humanity by inciting Hutus to kill Tutsis.

"All the speech was an incitement to hate," federal attorney Michel Denis told reporters.

The government describes Mugesera as a war criminal who was complicit in the genocide of 1994, when hundreds of thousands of Tutsis died in massacres, many of them hacked to death with machetes.

But Mugesera's lawyer, Guy Bertrand, said the 1992 speech had been mistranslated and misinterpreted.

"There was a false picture painted of Mugesera," Bertrand told the court.

Wearing a gray business suit, Mugesera sat with his wife, who wore a colorful African dress, and his five children, with mainly Hutu supporters behind him.

Across the courtroom aisle were Tutsi Rwandans who have agitated for Canada to deport him.

"I find it unbelievable that that speech can be misinterpreted in any way," said one Tutsi, Juliete Karugahe, who said members of her extended family had been slain.

"I think it's really sad that he should be living safely in Canada after making such a speech," she told Reuters.

Bertrand argued that Mugesera did not urge his people to go out and kill Tutsis. He said the speech was laden with the conditional tense, in which his hearers were urged to action only if attacked or if threatened.

In arguments before the court, government lawyer Denis rejected this.

"'If you don't leave, you'll be exterminated' -- I don't think it's a reassuring conditional tense," he said in French.

Mugesera fled Rwanda for Canada after giving his speech, leaving the African country well before the the start of the 1994 genocide. He says he fears torture or death if deported back home.

But David Matas argued on behalf of Jewish groups that Mugesera should go.

"It isn't just about Rwanda," he told reporters after the hearing. "It's about whether Canada can be effective in protecting its borders from genocidal killers, criminals against humanity, mass murderers."

The court is not likely to make a decision until next year.

- REUTERS