US deports Rwandan national accused of involvement in 1994 genocide

Rwanda’s National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) confirmed that American law enforcement officers handed Teganya over to Rwandan police at Kigali International Airport on the evening of Monday, November 9, 2026.

His deportation completes a multi-nation pursuit that spanned over thirty years across Africa, North America, and Europe.

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Teganya was a medical student at the University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB) in southern Rwanda.

Rwanda's prosecutors, who formally indicted Teganya in 2014, accuse him of collaborating with the notorious Interahamwe militia.

State authorities allege that Teganya actively participated in targeting, betraying, and participating in the murder of Tutsi patients, medical staff, and hiding students at the hospital complex.

Following the collapse of the genocidal regime in July 1994, Teganya fled Rwanda into what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), later making his way through Kenya and India.

In 1999, using a fraudulent Zimbabwean passport, he allegedly entered Canada and requested political asylum.

Canadian authorities denied his claim following allegations of his involvement in human rights violations, ordering his deportation.

To evade Canadian deportation, Teganya allegedly slipped across the border on foot near Houlton, Maine, on August 3, 2014, where he was apprehended by U.S. border agents. He immediately applied for U.S. asylum, omitting his political affiliations with the ruling MRND party and his actions during the genocide.

While American federal courts lacked direct jurisdiction to prosecute Teganya for murder and genocide committed abroad, the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with concealing his past to exploit the immigration system.

In April 2019, following an 18-day trial in Boston, Massachusetts, a federal jury found Teganya guilty of two counts of immigration fraud and three counts of perjury.

Federal Judge F. Denis Saylor IV sentenced him to 97 months in federal prison, noting that Teganya had committed perjury by lying on the witness stand.

Upon completing his U.S. prison sentence, Teganya was transferred to immigration custody for removal proceedings, paving the way for his return to Kigali.

During the genocide, Teganya “led teams of soldiers…to locate Tutsi patients and refugees hiding in the hospital. Once discovered, the Tutsis were taken and killed behind the maternity ward,” ICE said in a statement.

Upon landing in Kigali, Teganya was handcuffed and escorted off the aircraft into custody.

The NPPA commended U.S. judicial authorities for their collaboration in curbing international impunity for genocide fugitives.

Teganya is set to be formally charged before the Rwandan courts, where he will stand trial over his suspected role in the 1994 atrocities.