Four men accused of playing key roles in the Rwandan genocide are in custody after a high-level extradition deal by the British Government.
Dr Vincent Bajinya, 45 - who has changed his name to Dr Vincent Brown - Charles Munyaneza, 48, Celestin Ugirashebuja, 53, and Emmanuel Nteziryayo, 44, were arrested in co-ordinated police swoops on Thursday night.
The Rwandan government wants to have all four extradited to face trial on genocide charges relating to the 1994 slaughter in which up to one million ethnic Tutsis were massacred by Hutu militias.
All four were remanded in custody until next month at a hearing at London's City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Three of the men - Munyaneza, a cleaner from Bedford; Ugirashebuja, from Walton on the Naze, Essex; and Nteziryayo, of Manchester - were allegedly local Bourgmestres (or mayors) with sweeping powers in their area during the slaughter.
Bajinya, of Islington, north London, is accused of having been a militia co-ordinator in the capital Kigali.
"They were not the militia men, they were the organisers and facilitators in the genocide in which hundreds of thousands of men, women and children died because of the fact they were Tutsis," Gemma Lindfield, representing the Rwandan government, told the court.
Campaigners had been calling on Britain to take steps for the four - who had already been named in media reports - to be sent to Rwanda but the UK has no extradition treaty with the country.
The arrests follow a decision by Home Secretary John Reid to grant special arrangements with Rwanda allowing the men to face extradition proceedings which were revealed for the first time at the hearing.
District Judge Anthony Evans heard that Rwanda had agreed that the men would not be given the death penalty were they to be convicted.
