{{U.S. Federal prosecutors have asked to delay sentencing of Rwandan genocide suspect Beatrice Munyenyezi because the Boston-based attorneys have been heavily involved in the response to last month’s Boston Marathon bombings.}}
However, Munyenyezi’s lawyers argue that Prosecutors ‘shouldn’t have to wait’.
The suspect who lives in Manchester was convicted in February of lying on U.S. immigration forms about her role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
Her lawyers said, Munyenyezi has already been incarcerated four times longer than the maximum period allowed under 2003 sentencing guidelines, the ones in place when she is accused of lying about her past in Rwanda.
“We’re very sympathetic to the resources the marathon bombings is taking,” attorney Mark Howard said. “But we have a client’s interests to protect. And I don’t think anyone would want to sit in jail and wait just because the government is busy.”
Munyenyezi was convicted of immigration fraud during a two-week trial in February, a proceeding held only after a first one in her case ended in a mistrial in March 2012.
During the second trial, prosecutors called nearly a dozen Rwandan witnesses to the stand, with each connecting Munyenyezi to the violence in some way.
Several placed her at a roadblock outside the hotel owned by her husband’s family where prosecutors say Munyenyezi checked identification cards and separated ethnic Tutsis, who would be killed or raped. Other witnesses described seeing Munyenyezi wear the colorful clothing of the MRND party, which organized the Genocide.
Prosecutors called it evidence that Munyenyezi had lied when she told immigration officials she wasn’t politically affiliated.
The jury convicted Munyenyezi after about four hours of deliberation. The mother of three – who applied in 1995 to come to the United States as a refugee and was naturalized in 2003 – was immediately stripped of her citizenship by Judge Stephen McAuliffe.
{wirestory}
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