By Haggai Carmon

On April 30, a team of attorneys and process servers tried to serve President Kagame with an 8-count lawsuit pertaining to his involvement in the Rwandan Genocide and racketeering in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kagame was delivering a commencement address at the Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, Oklahoma, and it seems that he may have purposefully avoided service (of which he was advised in advance) by departing from the event early and allegedly instructing his staff not to accept any documents on his behalf.

Even though he avoided receiving the documents constituting service, if it can be proven that Kagame avoided service intentionally, then the attempt to serve is equivalent to the defendant having been served.

The lawsuit was filed on April 29 in an Oklahoma City federal court by Agatha Habyarimana and Sylvana Ntaryamira, widows of the Rwandan and Burundi presidents, respectively, who were in office during the time of the Rwandan Civil War. The two presidents, both Hutus, were killed when their plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. The presidents were on their way home from a conference of African leaders on how to stop the rampant violence in Rwanda and Burundi.

According to the complaint,  Kagame and nine of his military officers and officials were responsible for the assassination of the two presidents, as well as other acts that led to the widespread civilian massacres of 1994, in which 1 million lives were lost. (In the aftermath of the genocide, Kagame emerged as President of Rwanda, the victorious general of the Rwandan Civil War, 1990-1994). Furthermore, the suit alleges that Kagame is guilty of racketeering to get control over the wealth of natural resources in the eastern parts of the D. R. Congo, which has spurred further lethal violence in the area (5.4 million lives lost).

The eight counts of the lawsuit are as follows: [1] Wrongful Death and Murder; [2] Crimes against Humanity; [3] Violation of the Rights of Life, Liberty and Security of Person; [4] Assault and Battery; [5] Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress; [6] Violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act; [7] Torture and [8] Conspiracy to Torture.

With regards to jurisdiction, the lawsuit argues for jurisdiction in the U.S. based on the Alien Tort Statute, which allows United States courts to hear human rights cases brought by foreign citizens for acts committed outside the U.S., and the Extraterritorial Torture Statute, the federal law that criminalizes torture abroad. The latter was passed in 1994, just before the U.S. ratified the Convention against Torture. The law was intended to give weight to Article 5 of the Convention, which requires state parties to prosecute acts of torture, regardless of where they are committed, as long as the alleged perpetrators are found on the state’s territory. This article ensures that torturers do not have a safe haven in the U.S. from prosecution of human rights violations committed abroad. The suit argues in favor of Oklahoma City court jurisdiction given “ongoing, substantial contacts” between the defendants and educational and non-profit organizations in the State of Oklahoma.