Rwanda's intelligence chief Karenzi Karake, who is wanted in Spain for war crimes, has been arrested in London, BBC Newsnight has learned.
It is understood the Met Police's extradition unit arrested Gen Karake at Heathrow Airport on Saturday.
Scotland Yard confirmed the 54-year-old Rwandan appeared before Westminster Magistrates' Court after being detained under a European Arrest Warrant.
He has been remanded in custody until 25 June.
Gen Karake is director general of Rwanda's National Intelligence and Security Services.
In 2008, a Spanish judge indicted him for alleged war crimes. He is accused of ordering a number of massacres while head of military intelligence after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed between April and June 1994 by ethnic Hutu extremists. Most of the dead were members of the minority Tutsi community and politically-moderate Hutus.
The killings ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led rebel movement that entered the country from Uganda, seized control of the country.
Gen Karake, who is a member of the RPF, is one of 40 current or former high-ranking Rwandan military officials named on the Spanish indictment.
He is also accused of ordering the killing of three Spanish nationals working for the NGO Medicos del Mundo.
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