A thirty-seven year old Rwandan man was charged with genocide earlier this month in Ontario. Jacques Mungwarere, who has been living in Windsor, Ontario, is alleged to have committed an act of genocide in the Kibuye region of Rwanda during the 100 day genocide that took place in that country in 1994.
The brutal genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 caused the death of an estimated 800,000 people in only three months. In Kibuye, where Mungwarere is accused of having committed genocide, an estimated 2,000 people died when bulldozers flattened the church they had taken refuge in.
Mungwarere is only the second person in Canada to be charged under the eight-year-old Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. The first person, Desire Munyaneza, was sentenced only last month to life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty-five years. He also was charged with genocide during the Rwandan genocide. In his ruling, the judge wrote that Mr. Munyaneza "chose to kill, rape and pillage in the name of the supremacy of his ethnic group, reminding us that every time a man claims to belong to a superior race, a chosen people, humanity is in danger.”
Mungwarere was arrested after a six year investigation, which began after a complaint from a Canadian citizen. According to the RCMP, there is a link between the two cases.
The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act applies to anyone who has committed or conspired to commit an act of genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime. When it was introduced on October 23 2000, Canada became the first nation to introduce legislature that incorporated the provisions of the International Criminal Court Statute into domestic law.
An interesting question however, is why Mungwarere is being tried in Canada at all. Ordinarily criminals face justice where they committed the crime, and Mungwarere never became a Canadian citizen. Whereas, for Munyaneza, extradition to Rwanda would have been incredibly unlikely because Rwanda still had the death penalty when he was arrested, Mungwarere’s case would be much simpler since Rwanda abolished its death penalty in 2007.
The RCMP War Crimes section has been in contact with the Rwandan authorities, and has travelled there on multiple occasions during the six year investigation. 
In the past, the Canadian government has been criticised for not devoting enough funds to the RCMP War Crimes Section whose annual budget is $16 million. Munyaneza’s case cost $4 million.
Huge numbers of trials have been held surrounding the Rwandan genocide. In 2000, there were 125,000 people being held in Rwandan prisons, waiting to go to trial, and approximately 3,000 suspects were tried between 1996 and 2000.
Mungwarere appeared in court via video on the November 12 to say he had not yet hired a lawyer. The RCMP has offered details to the case very clandestinely.