Beatrice Munyenyezi, a Rwandan woman living in New Hampshire, was convicted on Thursday of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, as a way to obtain U.S. citizenship.
A federal judge stripped Munyenyezi of her U.S. citizenship after a jury convicted her on two counts of masking her role in the genocide to gain refugee status and later citizenship.
Munyenyezi, 43, is back in jail where she previously spent 22 months between her indictment in 2010 and the jury deadlocking in her first trial last year, according to the Associated Press. She faces up to 10 years in prison and could face deportation back to Rwanda if her appeals fail.
Her lawyers say deportation to Rwanda is equivalent to a death sentence.
"She's going to get sent back to Rwanda now, and they'll kill her," defense attorney David Ruoff said after the verdict. "(U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will send her back in a heartbeat."
Munyenyezi brought her three daughters to the United States in 1998 and focused on providing a solid American life for them. She work a $13 an hour job at Manchester's Housing Authority, and enrolled her children in Catholic school. She was on her way to financing a comfortable American lifestyle through mortgages, loans and credit cards before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2008.
Ruoff said he and attorney Mark Howard plan to appeal her conviction to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. He said he doubts that, even if she gets out of prison before the appeal is decided, she would be deported before the court rules.
Jurors determined she fraudulently obtained her U.S. citizenship status, alleging she denied any role in the genocide or affiliation with any political party at the time. The second count alleged she was ineligible for citizenship because she entered the United States unlawfully by making the same false statements on her refugee and green card applications. The trial proved that she lied when she denied affiliation in any political party.
Prosecutors brought in Rwandans who exposed that she was complicit in the Rwandan genocide, which killed almost 800,000 Tutsis in a manner of weeks. Witnesses identified Munyenyezi. She reportedly was stationed at a roadblock where Tutsis were identified by the ethnicities listed on their Rwandan ID cards. Many were killed. Other witnesses testified they saw her in garb worn by leaders of the extremist Hutu political party, the MRND.
Munyenyezi's mother also was a cabinet minister in the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government when the genocide began in early April 1994, according to reports.
