"The United States will not be a safe haven for suspected human rights violators and war criminals,” then-District of Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said upon Nshimiye’s arrest.

Nshimiye and his family have denied the charges.

Neither his attorneys, nor prosecutors, responded to a request for comment for this story.

However, recent court filings by Nshimiye’s attorneys, Kurt Kerns and Maksim Nemtsev, provide insight into their planned defense.

Nshimiye wasn’t even in Butare, defense says

In a Sept. 18 appeal, the two attorneys explained that prosecutors will have to prove Nshimiye raped and murdered in order to secure guilty verdicts on the alleged crimes for lying.

“This case will therefore require proof as to what happened in the small Rwandan town between April – July 1994, more than thirty years ago at a time when that country was encased in a civil war and the location and activities of Mr. Nshimiye during that period,” they wrote.

For the past year, Kerns and Nemtsev have sought a variety of foreign records from that time period, all created and held in other countries. To get the documents, they need approval from the judge and, in some cases, assistance from the U.S. government.

They’ve been unable to secure all the records they want, which prompted the recent appeal.

They seek “specific documents and records from four foreign governmental or institutional sources in France, Canada, Rwanda, and Tanzania,” according to the appeal.

The attorneys detailed how the records will help show Nshimiye couldn’t have committed genocide.

“First, the defense intends to prove that on April 6, 1994 — when former President Juvenal Habyarimana’s (plane) was shot down — Mr. Nshimiye was on spring break visiting his brother in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.”After the genocide started, Mr. Nshimiye moved around Kigali, until traveling to his hometown of Ruhengeri where he stayed at his family’s home. Mr. Nshimiye attempted to return to Butare to retrieve his belongings but was turned away due to the dangerous conditions.

“Subsequently, he and his family fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)though Gisenyi (a different town in Rwanda) where he obtained a new Rwandan passport. In DRC, Mr. Nshimiye eventually made his way to a refugee camp in the Kahindo area and received a job as a pharmacy stock manager at a makeshift hospital, run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the French equivalent of Doctors Without Borders.”

“After approximately two months at the camp, Mr. Nshimiye travelled to Nairobi, Kenya using the Rwandan passport he obtained in Gisenyi, where he received a visa from Kenyan authorities.”

In the appeal, Nshimiye’s attorneys said they want MSF to supply Nshimiye’s employment records, various applications and his Rwandan passport. Those documents, they wrote, “would conclusively demonstrate that Mr. Nshimiye was not in Butare during much, or all, of the period he is alleged to be in Butare committing genocide.”

Soldiers of the government forces stand on June 18, 1994, as some Tutsi refugees are evacuated by UN soldiers from the Mille Collines hotel in Kigali, which had been attacked on June 17 by Hutu militiamaen. On April 6, 1994, the death of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, triggered several weeks of systematic and large-scale massacres targeting the Tutsi population and moderate Hutus in Rwanda. The number of murdered victims of the Rwandan genocide is about 800,000. Between 150,000 and 250,000 women were also raped.

A second component of possible exoneration, according to the appeal, is that “the defense intends to prove that Mr. Nshimiye has never been wanted or labelled as a genocide participant,” in any prior court cases in the U.S., Rwanda or other countries.

To establish that, they seek detailed foreign court records.

“Put differently, if a suspect were suddenly accused of the Nicole Brown Simpson homicide three decades after the fact, the logical first step would be to examine relevant documents and statements from the original O.J. Simpson investigation directly bearing on the killer’s identity and testimony and other documentary evidence would likely be admissible to rebut the new charge,” the attorneys stated in the appeal.

The 28-page appeal filing, which includes some redactions, indicated Nshimiye’s defense team also will hire an expert historian “to show (Nshimiye) was never previously named or implicated in any investigative, judicial, or community-based processes.”

That will further prove Nshimiye’s innocence, they wrote.

“The defense aims to challenge the credibility of any fresh accusations,” they stated in the appeal. “Whether motivated by personal grievances, fear of reprisal,or perceived benefits in cooperating with authorities or prevailing narratives, the risk of witness fabrication remains a genuine concern — one that the defense will seek to bring to the jury’s attention.”

Allegations of a spiked club and multiple killings

Authorities have said Nshimiye was in Butare during the genocide.

They say he studied and worked at a hospital there, and that he was a member of the National Revolutionary Movement for Development and the Interahamwe, a violent segment for youth.

At the time, Rwanda was a country of 6.7 million people. Most, including Nshimiye, were of an ethnic group known as Hutus. Another group, Tutsis, were among those in the minority.

Nshimiye is accused of participating in a nearby roadblock and a series of crimes, including that he:

Murdered a 14-year-old Tutsi boy a short time after he and others had killed the boy’s mother.
Helped round up as many as 30 Tutsis hiding in a forest near the university, then killed and burned them.
Struck one woman in the head with a nail-studded club before he hacked her to death.

Bragged of killing a Tutsi tailo while he held a blood-soaked spiked club in his hand.
In an interview last year, Nshimiye’s wife, Chantal Nshimiye, told the Canton Repository none of it can be true.

“We are mixed; our family, there are Hutus and Tutsis both,” she said.

His family said Nshimiye knew he was taking a risk by travelling to Boston in 2019 to testify at the trial of Jean Leonard Teganya. They roomed together while both attended medical school in Butare.

Teganya was convicted on several charges.

Speaking on behalf of Teganya is likely what led federal authorities to pursue charges against Nshimiye, his family said.