KAMPALA, Uganda (AFP) – Ugandan police have arrested top Rwandan genocide suspect Idelphonse Nizeyimana, who is accused of organising a massacre of students and the murder of an emblematic Tutsi queen, officials said yesterday.

Nizeyimana, who was given the nickname “Butcher of Butare”, was captured Monday in a Kampala hotel and transferred yesterday to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in neighbouring Tanzania.

A fugitive since 1994, the former Rwandan army intelligence officer is one of the tribunal’s four most wanted suspects. He is also on a US list of Rwandan genocide suspects with a US$5-million bounty for his arrest.

Nizeyimana served as an intelligence officer in the southern university town of Butare in 1994 during the mass killings in Rwanda that left an estimated 800,000 people dead in just 100 days.

He is wanted for genocide, complicity to commit genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Nizeyimana, a Hutu, is accused of being one of the two leading planners of massacres in Butare, including the killing of ethnic Tutsi students and lecturers at the university.

He is also accused of sending soldiers to the home of queen Rosalie Gicanda, a figure revered by Tutsis, and ordering her execution. She was the widow of Rwanda’s King Mutara III, who died in 1959.

In a statement, the ICTR said Nzeyimana “is alleged to have exercised authority over soldiers and personnel… and was perceived as a member of the elite inner circle of the late president Habyarimana”.

The downing of the plane carrying Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimina on April 6, 1994, is believed to have triggered the genocide.

Massacres began later in Butare than in other parts of Rwanda. Hutus and Tutsis had lived there in harmony and it was only after the removal and execution of the local prefect that the killings started.

“We got him. He was in a hotel and our intelligence located him. Through Interpol the police were able to identify him (and check) that he was the one on the wanted list,” Ugandan police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba told AFP.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed his arrest as a “positive development” and urged countries in the region to continue co-operating with the ICTR, a UN statement said.

“His arrest is an important step forward in the fight against impunity and strongly signals the Great Lakes region’s commitment to peace and security,” the statement said.

The other top fugitives on the ICTR list are Felicien Kabuga, the suspected genocide financier, former defence minister Augustin Bizimana and presidential guard chief Protais Mpiranya.

According to the tribunal, 11 other suspects are still at large, many of them believed to be hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rwandan prosecution spokesman Augustin Nkusi welcomed Nzeyimana’s capture but said Rwandan authorities would prefer that he be extradited to face trial at the scene of his crimes.

Nizeyimana was captured after a tip-off and did not resist arrest, the deputy chief of Uganda Interpol, Elly Womanya, said.

His arrest was a collaborative work between the ICTR, Interpol and Ugandan authorities.

“He is in the custody of the ICTR,” Roland Amoussouga, a spokesman for the tribunal told AFP in Arusha, Tanzania.

Police said Nizeyimana arrived in Uganda around Thursday from neighbouring DR Congo and may have been heading for Nairobi or Tanzania.

Since the recent thaw in Rwanda-DR Congo relations, Kinshasa has been under pressure to hand over to the ICTR suspected organisers of the genocide hiding there.