Credit: Toledo skyline along the Maumee River, July 2022, by MrJacon000, via Wikimedia Commons.

A federal jury in Boston has convicted a Rwandan-born Ohio man of lying during a 2019 criminal trial as part of what prosecutors called a decades-long scheme to conceal his involvement in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Reuters reported.

The verdict: the jury on Tuesday found Eric Nshimiye, 54, guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from testimony he gave during the earlier immigration fraud trial of a former classmate who was also accused of participating in the atrocities. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 26, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Leah Foley, whose office prosecuted the case.

The Ohio connection: Nshimiye has lived in the United States since 1995, when he gained admission as a refugee. He became a U.S. citizen in 2003. At the time of his arrest in 2024, he was working as an engineer for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. while living in Uniontown, Ohio.

What prosecutors alleged: prosecutors said Nshimiye falsified and concealed information about himself to hide that he participated in the massacre by the hard-line Hutu regime of an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during three months of slaughter in Rwanda. Citing witnesses, prosecutors alleged that when the violence broke out, Nshimiye was in Butare, where he had been attending university as a medical student along with his classmate Jean Leonard Teganya. Prosecutors said both men belonged to the political party that helped perpetrate the genocide, and that Nshimiye during the violence attacked Tutsis and handed Tutsis over to be raped or killed.

What he denied: when called as a defense witness in Teganya’s 2019 trial, Nshimiye denied participating in the genocide or being a member of the ruling Hutu-dominated party, the National Revolutionary Movement for Development. Teganya was convicted of perjury and visa fraud charges and was sentenced later in 2019 to more than eight years in prison.

The defense: Nshimiye’s lawyer, Kurt Kerns, told jurors in his opening statement on Oct. 13 that the charges against Nshimiye were based on “fabricated accusations” and that he was not even in Butare when the violence began. Kerns argued prosecutors charged Nshimiye only after he stepped up to help a friend by testifying as a character witness in Teganya’s case. After the verdict, Kerns said: “We are obviously very disappointed with the verdict, but we will continue to pursue all avenues of relief on Eric’s behalf.”

Plain caveat: the Boston conviction is for perjury and obstruction of justice — for lying in the 2019 trial — not a conviction for genocide participation itself. The participation allegations are attributed to prosecutors and witnesses.

Source: Reuters via 101 WIXX