**Rwanda says two rebel leaders arrested in Germany on Tuesday should be sent home to face trial.**Foreign Minister Rose Museminari told the BBC that she welcomed the arrest of FDLR leader Ignace Murwanashyaka and his deputy Straton Musoni.
However, they have been arrested for war crimes allegedly committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rwanda accuses some FDLR leaders of having carried out the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi minority.
‘Fund-raisers’
Mr Murwanashyaka has strongly denied that he or his men have any links to the genocide. He has been in Germany since before the 1994 killings.
He says they are fighting to bring democracy to Rwanda, which is now led by a Tutsi-dominated party.
The presence of the largely Hutu FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) in DR Congo has been at the heart of years of unrest in the region.
IGNACE MURWANASHYAKA
- Ethnic Hutu, aged 46
- Been in Germany since before Rwanda genocide
- Denies charges his men are linked to genocide
- Says fighting for democracy in Rwanda
- Commands 5-6,000 men
- FDLR said to smuggle gold from DR Congo to buy weapons
- Accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity
- Accused of killings, rape, looting and conscripting child soldiers in DR Congo
Congo gold ‘still funding’ rebels
Rwanda has twice invaded DR Congo in recent years, saying it had to stop the FDLR from launching attacks on its territory.
UN peacekeepers are currently helping the Congolese army battle the FDLR in an operation which began in January.
Lobby group Human Rights Watch says that in that time, FDLR fighters have killed at least 630 people and raped numerous women.
“Ignace Murwanashyaka and his colleagues are the ones now fuelling the war that is in eastern Congo,” Ms Museminari told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
"They are the ones who are collecting money and doing all the political work, canvassing for support.
“So we welcome the fact that they’ve been arrested. We urge that these people are transferred to Rwanda, and they are tried.”
Mr Murwanaskyaka, 46, was arrested in the city of Karlsruhe, while 48-year-old Mr Musoni was held in the Stuttgart area, German prosecutors said in a statement.
“The accused are strongly suspected, as members of the foreign terrorist organisation FDLR, of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes,” it said.
It added that “FDLR militias are believed to have killed several hundred civilians, raped numerous women, plundered and burned countless villages, forcing villagers from their homes and recruiting numerous children as soldiers”.
The FDLR is accused of funding its arms purchases by smuggling gold and other minerals from areas it controls in the North and South Kivu provinces, just across the border from Rwanda.