A federal jury convicted Eric Nshimiye, aka Eric Tabaro Nshimiyimana, 54, yesterday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice related to his concealment of material information concerning his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Specifically, the jury convicted Mr Nshimiye of lying to a federal jury during the 2019 trial in Boston of convicted Rwandan genocide perpetrator Jean Leonard Teganya.

Mr Nshimiye fled Rwanda in the summer of 1994 and went to Kenya. In 1995, he gained admission to the United States as a refugee by failing to disclose his violent participation in the Rwandan genocide to immigration authorities. In subsequent years, Mr Nshimiye continued to provide false information about his involvement in the Rwandan genocide to obtain lawful permanent residence and ultimately U.S. citizenship. Nshimiye has lived and worked in Ohio since 1995.

“For nearly three decades, this defendant concealed his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the heinous acts of violence he committed, including clubbing people to death,” said assistant attorney general Tysen Duva for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

According to the evidence presented at trial, while he was a medical student at the University of Rwanda in Butare, Rwanda, in the early 1990s, Mr Nshimiye participated in attacking Tutsi men and women, including by striking them on the head with a club.

At that time, the country was significantly divided ethnically, with about 90 per cent of its population being Hutus and about nine per cent being Tutsis.

In the spring of 1994, after the Hutu president’s plane was shot down over Kigali, the country spiralled into one of the worst ethnic genocides in modern history. Members of the Hutu majority and those affiliated with them murdered approximately 800,000 Tutsis, including women and children, in a span of some 100 days.

According to the evidence, Messrs Nshimiye and Teganya were well-known student members of the ruling Hutu-dominated party, the MRND (Mouvement révolutionnaire national pour le développement), which played a critical role in the genocide.

Victims during the trial testified that Mr Nshimiye directly participated in the genocide. One victim, who was a 17-year-old boy at the time, witnessed Mr Nshimiye club to death a tailor who worked at the university hospital. Other witnesses recounted how Mr Nshimiye had participated in roadblocks, separating Tutsis from Hutus to be killed.

Numerous witnesses testified that Nshimiye was a member of the MRND, frequently attended political rallies, and wore the distinctive garb of such members.

In 2017, the United States charged Mr Teganya with fraudulently seeking asylum in the United States by similarly concealing his membership in the MRND and his involvement in the genocide. When called to testify at trial on Mr Teganya’s behalf in 2019, Mr Nshimiye said that neither he nor Mr Teganya participated in the genocide, nor were they members of the MRND.

Mr Teganya was ultimately convicted of two counts of immigration fraud and three counts of perjury in April 2019. The lies Mr Nshimiye told a federal jury during that trial formed the basis of his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Mr Nshimiye faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each of the four perjury counts and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for one count of obstruction of justice. He will be sentenced on January 26, 2027.