Rwandan cannot be deported — yet

MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court Judge has ruled that Rwandan suspected war criminal Leon Mugesera cannot be deported until a hearing is held on a request from the United Nations Committee Against Torture to review the case.

The 59-year-old Mugesera, who came to Canada in 1992, two years before Rwanda’s genocide, is in a Quebec City hospital. His family says he is in critical condition.

He was admitted Wednesday after the Federal Court of Canada ruled he must be deported to his native Rwanda to stand trial on charges of inciting genocide.

Shortly afterward, the UN committee asked Ottawa if they could review the case.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’s office said Mugesera would be deported “as soon as possible,” suggesting Canada would not honour the request from the UN. Mugesera gave a speech in 1992 calling on Hutus to kill the minority Tutsis and throw their bodies into rivers.

The speech was rebroadcast in 1994 during the genocide.

The supreme court of canada ruled unanimously in 2005 that Mugesera is inadmissible to Canada.

— POSTMEDIA FILE PHOTO Leon Mugesera and his wife arrive at federal court in Montreal last week.