From Rwanda to Wichita: An African genocide trial in Kansas

An elderly man from Central Africa is appearing in a Kansas court accused of ordering ethnic killings during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Lazare Kobagaya, an 84-year old former teacher has lived with his family in Wichita since 1997. In 2006 he was became a U.S. citizen and, in the court where jurors are hearing 17-year-old tales of horror from a faraway country, it is his citizenship that is at stake.

U.S. prosecutors accuse Kobagaya of covering up his role in the genocide and, if found guilty, he will be convicted of lying to immigration officials and faces deportation.

Prosecutors say Kobagaya was in the southern Rwanda village of Birambo ordering killings; the defence say he lived in neighboring Burundi at the time. The New York Times has an in-depth look at this unusual trial.

Yet, it is part of a trend towards universal jurisdiction, proof that in the joined-up modern world it is increasingly hard to escape the law.

Last week two other Rwandans, accused of commanding massacres perpetrated by a Rwandan rebel group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, appeared before a court in Germany.

Charles Taylor, a former president of Liberia, is on trial before an international tribunal in The Hague. In 2009 his son, Chucky Taylor, profiled here in Rolling Stone magazine, became the first U.S. citizen to be convicted in an American court of torture committed in a foreign land.

Meanwhile the International Criminal Court is making a name for itself bringing charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity in places like Congo, Uganda, Sudan and, soon it is expected, Libya.