Prof. Leopold Munyakazi was suddenly accused of genocide by the Rwandan government after challenging the official line on 1994 atrocities. Now NBC News is helping the regime drive him from American academia.

The network is said to be working on a show that could be called "To Catch A War Criminal," in which the network partners with foreign governments to investigate alleged human rights abusers. The show is in trouble before the first episode has aired: One subject, in the midst of NBC's investigation, was suspended from his teaching job in Maryland, then arrested by the Department of Homeland Security, and is in the process of being deported. Except, uh, he might be innocent.

As Brian Stelter writes in a front-page New York Times story, Human Rights Watch believes the accusation may be false. Munyakazi was held in a Rwandan jail for five years and then released without trial, a sign there were no real charges. He was hired by a major Rwandan public university. Then he was granted official permission to travel to the U.S. He became an accused criminal within one month of giving a speech at the University of Vermont, in which he made the academic point that the 1994 killings in Rwanda should be called "civil war" or "fratricide" instead of "genocide" because both sides were of the same ethnicity. That contradicted the official government line.

Even the college president who suspended Munyakazi, following a joint session with an NBC producer and a Rwandan prosecutor, has doubts about NBC's story (PDF). He's letting Munyakazi remain in college housing.

According to Jack Shafer at Slate, NBC's team includes contract documentary maker Charlie Ebersol, son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol. Ebersol had something of a profile even before this incident as the rumored boyfriend of tennis star Maria Sharpova. He's been photographed with movie stars like Ben Affleck; in the picture at left, he's at a 2006 HBO event with Ashton Kutcher. (Perhaps he picked up some tips from the Punk'd creator on theatrical on-camera confrontations.)

NBC told the Times their war-criminal show is "months away from a broadcast date." Prediction: That date will never come. News divisions might spend money on international investigations that bring them prestige, or tolerate embarrassment from moneymakers like Dateline or PrimeTime Live. But a pricey global investigation that takes months to produce AND is embarrassing? Good luck selling that inside a network.

[many links via Wronging Rights]