A woman who served a 10-year sentence in U.S. prison for lying about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to obtain American citizenship and lost her bid for a new trial has been deported to Rwanda. Beatrice Munyenyezi was convicted and sentenced in 2013 in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. She served a 10-year sentence in the state of Alabama and had faced deportation. She lost her latest court battle in March, when the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district judge’s rejection of her petition challenging how the jury was instructed during her trial in federal court in New Hampshire. Munyenyezi was convicted of lying about her role as a commander of one of the notorious roadblocks where Tutsis were singled out for slaughter. She denied affiliation with any political party, despite her husband’s leadership role in the extremist Hutu militia party. She requested a new trial based on a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the government’s ability to strip citizenship from immigrants who lied during the naturalization process.
SOURCE: VOA