A man who has been living in Northeast Ohio for nearly 30 years is charged in federal court for a scheme to hide his alleged participation in killing Tutsi men, women and children during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Eric Tabaro Nshimiye, 52, allegedly fled Rwanda in 1994, made his way to Kenya, and in 1995, lied to U.S. immigration officials to gain admission to the United States as a refugee, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts. He then emigrated to Ohio, and, while living and working in Uniontown, allegedly continued to provide false information about his involvement in the genocide to obtain permanent residence and, ultimately, U.S. citizenship.
Charging documents state Nshimiye was a medical student at the University of Rwanda in the early 1990s, during a time when the country had significant ethnic division. Nshimiye and his classmate Jean Leonard Teganya were well-known student members of the MRND political party, the ruling Hutu-dominated party that incited the genocide against the Tutsis. Nshimiye was also a member of the Interahamwe, “the notoriously violent youth wing of that movement,” the release states.
After the Hutu’s president was shot down in the spring of 1994, the country descended into “one of the worst ethnic genocides in modern history,” with members of the Hutu majority murdering about 800,000 Tutsis over the course of 100 days, the release states.
Nshimiye allegedly participated in the killing of Tutsi men, women and children by striking them on the head with a nail-studded club, then hacking them to death with a machete, according to the news release. His charging documents cite the specific murders of a 14-year-old boy and a man who sewed doctor’s coats at the university hospital. Witnesses recently identified the locations of the killings and drew pictures of Nshimiye’s weapons. It is also alleged that he participated in and aided and abetted the rape of numerous Tutsi women.
“For nearly 30 years, Mr. Nshimiye allegedly hid the truth about crimes he committed during the Rwandan genocide in order to seek refuge in the United States, and reap the benefits of U.S. citizenship. Our refuge and asylum laws exist to protect true victims of persecution -- not the perpetrators. The United States will not be a safe haven for suspected human rights violators and war criminals,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy. “Our office and our law enforcement partners are dedicated to locating and prosecuting those who commit human rights violations abroad and then evade our immigration laws. We will not cease in our pursuit of identifying and bringing to justice those individuals who have participated in unthinkable war crimes and human rights abuses.”
In 2017, Nshimiye’s former classmate Teganya was charged with fraudulently seeking asylum in the United States by similarly concealing his past. Nshimiye testified in Teganya’s defense in 2019, saying neither of them participated in the genocide.
Teganya was convicted of two counts of immigration fraud and three counts of perjury.
Nshimiye is alleged to have assisted Teganya in obstructing justice at his trial and falsely testifying about his involvement in the MRND, as well as perjuring himself when he denied his own membership.
The charging document also alleges Nshimiye made false statements to federal agents when he was recently interviewed about his past and about the documents he signed to obtain citizenship by continuing to conceal his alleged involvement in the genocide.
Nshimiye has been charged in a criminal complaint with falsifying, concealing and covering up a material fact by trick, scheme or device; obstruction of justice; and perjury. He was arrested Thursday morning in Ohio and detained after an initial appearance in the federal court in the Northern District of Ohio. He will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
“Homeland Security Investigations and the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center agents spend years investigating cases of alleged human rights violators and war criminals, interviewing survivors, and working alongside historians, in an effort to uncover the true history of perpetrators and hold them accountable for their actions. We are tireless in our pursuit of those who seek to use the United States as a haven from justice,” said Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England.
Hiding out in Ohio
Nshimiye is not the first Northeast Ohio resident to be accused of participation in an atrocity from history. John Demjanjuk worked for the Ford Motor Company in Northeast Ohio for 20 years until a group of Holocaust survivors accused him of being “Ivan the Terrible” - a notoriously cruel Nazi death camp guard.
Former News 5 photographer Richard Geyser traveled to Jerusalem to cover the trial of the Demjanjuk, who was found guilty, though the decision was later overturned. Geyser recounted the experience in 2019 after a Netflix documentary that used some News 5 footage and sparked new interest in the case:
