THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A Rwandan immigrant accused of ordering the killing of Tutsis dragged out of an ambulance during the 1994 genocide has been arrested and charged with war crimes and torture, a prosecution spokeswoman said Thursday.

Prosecutors identified the man only as 38-year-old Joseph M. and said he was a brother of another man, identified as Obed R., who has been convicted of genocide by an international tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced to 25 years.

"Witnesses have testified that M. played a role in several attacks on Tutsis in Mugonero in the Kibuye region," the Dutch national prosecutor's office said. "He is alleged to have ordered the killing of Tutsis that were dragged out of an ambulance."

The suspect, who was arrested Monday in Amsterdam and briefly appeared before a court in

The Hague on Thursday, will be tried in the Netherlands. If convicted, he faces a maximum life sentence, said prosecution spokeswoman Desiree Leppens.

Under Dutch law, foreigners believed to have committed war crimes overseas who are now living in the Netherlands can be prosecuted in Dutch courts.

"The government wants to send a national and international signal that the Netherlands is not a safe haven for torturers and war criminals," the prosecutor's office said in its statement.

The suspect's court appearance Thursday was behind closed doors, and it not immediately known if he made any comment at the hearing.

More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed in the 100-day slaughter organized by the extremist Hutu government then in power. Government troops, Hutu militia and ordinary villagers spurred on by hate messages broadcast over the radio went from village to village, butchering men, women and children.

The genocide ended when Tutsi-led rebels, under President Paul Kagame, ousted the extremist government in July 1994.

The same team of detectives who tracked down the suspect arrested Monday also have prosecuted two Dutch men in the past year for crimes committed overseas.

In June, Guus Kouwenhoven was sentenced to eight years for trading guns for logging rights in Liberia and using his lumber company to smuggle weapons used by militias to commit atrocities against civilians in West Africa.

And in December, businessman Frans van Anraat was sentenced to 15 years for supplying chemicals to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq that were used for chemicals weapons attacks.