Jury convicts Boston man of perjury in 1994 genocide case

A federal jury in Boston found Eric Nshimiye guilty on Tuesday after deliberating on his testimony regarding the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The 55-year-old United States citizen was convicted on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. The verdict concludes a trial that examined whether Nshimiye misled a court and federal agents about his actions in Butare.

Nshimiye was arrested in 2024 at his Ohio home by investigators from the US Department of Homeland Security. They alleged he lied during an interview about his time in Rwanda during the genocide. Prosecutors originally charged him with fraud on immigration paperwork for telling officials he did not take part in the violence when he moved to the US. They dropped the immigration charge before trial began.

The case stemmed from Nshimiye's role as a witness in a 2019 trial for Jean Leonard Teganya. Teganya was a former medical school roommate who was convicted of helping perpetrate the genocide. During that trial, Nshimiye told the court that neither he nor Teganya took part in the killing and rape of Tutsis in Butare. Prosecutors argued this testimony was false.

Assistant Attorney General A Tysen Duva of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division issued a statement on Wednesday. She stated that Nshimiye concealed his involvement in the genocide for nearly three decades. She noted he committed heinous acts of violence, including clubbing people to death. Duva added that he lied to immigration officials to become a US citizen and to a federal jury to protect himself and Teganya.

Witnesses from Rwanda told jurors they recalled Nshimiye participating in killings and violence in Butare directed at minority Tutsis in 1994. Some identified him as part of the pro-Hutu National Revolutionary Movement for Development and the Interahamwe paramilitary group. The Interahamwe is blamed for most of the killings during the genocide, which killed more than 800,000 people over about 100 days.

Defense attorneys argued Nshimiye was never implicated in domestic or international tribunals after the genocide. They referenced the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the gacaca system, which tried more than a million people. The defense pointed out inconsistencies in government witness testimonies and provided witnesses who said Nshimiye was in Kigali during the violence.

The defense also claimed Rwandan authorities interfered with the investigation by meeting with witnesses before they testified in Boston. Nshimiye's son, Tresor Nshimiye, told Al Jazeera that the family was shocked by the verdict. He said they expected a different outcome and planned to bring him home. Tresor noted the jury likely preferred the prosecutor's witnesses because they victimized themselves in their stories.

Nshimiye's attorneys filed a request with the court to count the time he spent in prison before trial toward his sentence. They argued he should be set free because the two and a half years he spent in custody exceeded the usual sentence for his convictions. The family, including his US-born children, was present in the courtroom when the verdict was announced.

Nshimiye is one of several defendants currently facing charges in the US related to the Rwandan genocide. In April 2025, prosecutors charged Faustin Nsabumukunzi, a 65-year-old beekeeper in Long Island, New York, with concealing his role in the violence. In June 2025, authorities charged Vincent Nzigiyimfura, a 65-year-old resident of Dayton, Ohio, with similar concealment. Both men were previously listed publicly as fugitives by Rwandan authorities.