Rwandan Genocide: Alleged Perpetrators

Debate between Ben Wallace and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady makes some valid suggestions. I am obviously not the Minister for Africa or the DFID Minister, but I will write to my colleagues and ask them to write to her to explain what they are doing. I will seek any suggestions she has about how to build a better policy.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide are Rwandan citizens, are they not? The public in this country will view with disbelief the fact that we are not returning them to justice in their own country. For those people to be at large and in receipt of social security benefits just makes the situation even worse. If in 1970, 25 years on from the horrific events of the second world war, there were alleged Nazi war criminals in this country and the Government were refusing to extradite them for trial in West Germany, Poland and Israel, that would have been unacceptable, as is this.

[Mr Wallace]

Perhaps I can correct my hon. Friend. The Government are not refusing to extradite them; we sought to extradite them to Rwanda to face justice. The court took a different view and said that it did not feel that they would face a fair trial if we did so. We have to abide by the court’s ruling, so we will instead seek to prosecute them in the United Kingdom. We think that is the best outcome. Whether they are citizens of the United Kingdom, Rwanda or anywhere else, we must abide by our article obligations under the European convention on human rights.

Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty

Debate between Ben Wallace and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 11th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I think both the hon. Gentleman and I were slightly caught short by the speed of the previous urgent question. I will do my best to answer his questions. Our guidance for upholding our principled position on the death penalty and following MLA requests is contained in the OSJA, published in 2011. Paragraph 9(b) on the death penalty clearly states:

“Where no assurances are forthcoming or where there are strong reasons not to seek assurances, the case should automatically be deemed ‘High Risk’ and FCO Ministers should be consulted to determine whether, given the specific circumstances of the case, we should nevertheless provide assistance.”

It was our view that there were strong reasons not to seek assurances.

This case has no easy solutions. It is easy for everyone to say, “We want justice for the victims”, but the options before this Government, our security forces and our citizens do not include a magic wand to get people miraculously into a UK court or provide evidence that matches the statute book that we happen to have. The strong reasons that, we would say, mean that the rights of those individuals detained are better served by a judicial trial in the United States are that they have a better chance of proper representation in a court of law than if they were left in detention by non-state actors in a war zone in north Syria, sent to Guantanamo Bay—something that the Government oppose fully—or allowed to go back into the battlefield and wreak murder and death in the same way that they have been accused of doing in the past. Those were the options on the table that we as Ministers, charged with keeping people safe and balancing our obligations, and implementing the Government’s policy as set out in the OSJA, have to weigh up. We felt that there were strong reasons not to seek death penalty assurances when sharing the evidence for a criminal trial in the United States.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering are as outraged as I am that 900 British citizens should have decided to go abroad and become foreign fighters engaged in armed conflict against members of Her Majesty’s armed forces; 180 have been killed in theatre, 360 have returned and 360 remain at large. Why on earth are we not stripping these people of their British citizenship, not allowing them back into the country or, if they are allowed back in, trying them for treason?

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes an important point and reminds us that we have to balance everyone’s rights—the rights of my constituents to go about their business securely and safely and their right to life against the rights of other people to a fair trial and not to be subject to torture and other conditions. There are no easy solutions. Where we find we have the powers to deal with individuals we explore all of them, including deprivation of citizenship, royal prerogatives to prevent people travelling and prosecuting people in a United Kingdom court, as we have done in some cases where we have the evidence to do so. We recognise that over many decades there has been a deficiency in offences on the statute book such as in extra-territorial legislation; sometimes we might have evidence of travel but the intelligence cannot be submitted in court. That is why in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which I am pleased to say the Opposition support, we have sought to improve the statute book so that we do not face problems like this in the future.