BRITAIN has granted asylum to a former Rwandan official accused of complicity in the murder of some 87,500 people in the 1994 genocide.

At the same time as sheltering him it has also donated £150,000 to setting up a memorial and genocide centre on the very site where slaughter on a huge scale was perpetrated by his militiamen, after he had allegedly incited, armed and organised them to kill.

Weeks of investigation in Britain and Rwanda led The Sunday Times last week to a council estate in Manchester where we found Emmanuel Nteziryayo, 52, a former local bourgmestre or mayor, living on welfare benefits.

He had arrived in Britain three years ago, changing his name from Nteziryayo to Ndikumana and his nationality from Rwandan to Burundian and claiming that he was fleeing persecution. Home Office officials believed his story and granted asylum to him and his wife and children.

Neighbours in Manchester have known Nteziryayo as “Papa Alice” after his young daughter. He has a younger wife and five children — three girls and twin boys. He does not work and seldom leaves the house except to visit the shops and go to the local Catholic church on Sundays — like most Rwandans he is a Christian.

“We had no idea about this,” a neighbour said yesterday. “He lived a quiet ordinary life.”

In Rwanda his name attracts fear and loathing. “In 12 years of concentrated research we have never come across an individual with as much blood on his hands,” said Rakiya Omaar, director of African Rights, a human rights organisation which has been researching and documenting the genocide since April 1994.

“Nteziryayo dispatched his militiamen to take part in more large-scale massacres than any other local official of his rank that we know of.”

Speaking from his Manchester home in the middle of a council estate on Friday evening, Nteziryayo appeared at the door wearing an open-neck shirt and brown trousers, his right foot bandaged.

At first he insisted that he was Ndikumana. But when told we knew that he was really Emmanuel Nteziryayo from Rwanda he said, “Yes, it is true.” He would not explain why he was living under a false name and a Burundian identity, saying only: “It is a private matter.”

Asked if he knew he was number 71 on a list issued by the Rwandan prosecutor’s office of the 100 most wanted war crimes suspects living abroad, he denied any involvement in the genocide. He said: “It is rubbish.”

Then he broke off the conversation and closed the door.

Evidence from Rwanda shows that Nteziryayo inspired and guided his militiamen to wipe out tens of thousands of men, women and children who had gathered in parishes across the province for refuge A few weeks into the genocide Nteziryayo’s militiamen became so well known for their commitment to killing that other local officials asked him for help, hoping their presence would inspire their own militiamen to greater bloodshed.

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