US court dismisses lawsuit against Rwanda's Kagame

Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:20am GMT

[-] Text [+]

Oct 28 (Reuters) - A federal court in Oklahoma on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame brought by the widows of two assassinated African presidents, ruling that he had immunity in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Lee West ruled that as a head of state recognized by the U.S. government, Kagame was immune from the wrongful death civil suit. The Obama administration had urged the court to recognize Kagame's immunity.

Juvenal Habyarimana, then president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of neighboring Burundi, were killed in a rocket attack on their plane at Kigali airport in 1994. The attack triggered the Rwandan genocide, in which Hutu militia and soldiers butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The widows had sought $350 million in damages, arguing that Kagame, leader of the Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, had ordered the assassination of their Hutu husbands.

The lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma in April 2010 during a visit by Kagame to speak at the graduation of 10 Rwandan students at Oklahoma Christian University.

The plaintiffs had argued the lawsuit against Kagame should go ahead, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 1997 ruling in Clinton v. Jones that the sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton could proceed while he was still in office.

"We are pleased that we were able to win this matter on the long-standing doctrine of head of state immunity," said defense attorney Pierre-Richard Prosper, who served as a war crimes prosecutor for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 1996 to 1998.

"We are confident, however, that had we been forced to address this matter on the merits we would have prevailed," Prosper said in a statement by his law firm, Arent Fox.

The Rwandan genocide ended after 100 days when Kagame's group seized control of the country. Kagame has been praised for rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

AFRICA BLOGS

Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) welcomes Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak as he arrives to attend a meeting involving five Arab states in Tripoli June 28, 2010. REUTERS/Stringer

Will 2012 see more strong men of Africa leave office?

There are many reasons for being angry with Africa ’s strong men, whose autocratic ways have thrust some African countries back into the eye of the storm and threatened to undo the democratic gains in other parts of the continent of the past decades. Blog

Kenyan troops patrol the Garrisa airstrip October 18, 2011. Al Qaeda-linked militants prepared to defend a south Somali town on Tuesday from advancing Kenyan and government troops, while a suicide car bomb killed six people in Mogadishu during a visit by a Kenyan minister. REUTERS/Gregory Olando

Operation Somalia: The U.S., Ethiopia and now Kenya

Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes. Blog

New recruits belonging to Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebel group march during a passing out parade at a military training base in Afgoye, west of the capital Mogadishu February 17, 2011. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Could Islamist rebels undermine change in Africa?

Creeping from the periphery in Africa’s east and west, Islamist militant groups now pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success. Blog

A disabled Somali refugee child crawls from their makeshift house at the Ifo camp near Daadab, about 80km (50 miles) from Liboi on the border with Somalia in north-eastern Kenya, February 4, 2009. The growing flow of Somalis fleeing conflict at home has led to overcrowding in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and the United Nations expects the influx to continue, an official said. REUTERS/Noor Khamis

The children of Dadaab: Life through the lens

Through my video “The children of Dadaab: Life through the Lens” I wanted to tell the story of the Somali children living in Kenya’s Dadaab. Living in the world’s largest refugee camp, they are the ones bearing the brunt of Africa’s worst famine in sixty years. Blog

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (R) and his Equatorial Guinea counterpart Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo arrive for the opening of the Harare Agricultural Show, August 31, 2007. President Robert Mugabe on Friday imposed a new law on Zimbabwean businesses banning them from raising wages to keep pace with the world's highest inflation. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Who among the seven longest serving African leaders will be deposed next?

Several African leaders watching news of the death of Africa ’s longest serving leader are wondering who among them is next and how they will leave office. Blog

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama jokes with photographers during a news conference in Sao Paulo September 16, 2011. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Was South Africa right to deny Dalai Lama a visa?

Given that China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and given the close relationship between Beijing and the ruling African National Congress, it didn’t come as a huge surprise that South Africa was in no hurry to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama. Blog

Latest AlertNet Crises News

Powered by Reuters AlertNet. AlertNet provides news, images and insight from the world's disasters and conflicts and is brought to you by Reuters Foundation.