Leon Mugesera

Rwandan Genocide Dept: CLOSE to one million people died in the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, and this week, after a 17-year legal battle in Canada, Leon Mugesera, who is accused of inciting that slaughter, was finally handed over to Rwandan authorities for trial. Canadian authorities apparently believed this alleged author of that tribal massacre might be mistreated in Rwandan jail and so he lived comfortably in Montreal while his appeal ran its seemingly endless course, according to Winnipeg Free Press. It may be then, as some French commentators are suggesting, that is not just coincidence or a pure act of historical humanitarianism on the part of President Nicholas Sarkozy's government that France this week made it a criminal act to publicly deny the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians was an act of genocide and leon Mugesera RYAN REMIORZ / THE CANADIAN PRESS Had he been accused of robbing a convenience store in Kigali, Mr. Mugesera might have been sent back years ago, but somehow the enormity of the crime of genocide seems to be beyond our grasp unless it is useful for political reasons. There are, for example, about 500,000 Armenians in France, many of them eligible to vote in next year's presidential election. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.