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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Rwanda_______________
European countries ponder extradition
Suspects charged in 1994 genocide
Italy has refused to hand over a Rwandan Catholic priest to the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on charges he cooperated in the 1994 genocide that killed hundreds of thousands. Italian officials said that it was unclear whether the tribunal’s extradition request met the standards set under Italian law. Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, angrily protested that, as a UN member state, Italy was in breach of its international obligations. “It’s a scandal. Belgrade has handed over [former Yugoslavian president Slobodan] Milosevic, but Rome won’t grant me this arrest,” she told London’s
Sunday Times. The identity of the priest was not revealed because he is the subject of a secret indictment.
In Switzerland, another Rwandan priest has appealed the decision of a court there to hand him over to the court in Tanzania, where the genocide-related trials are being held. Father Emmanuel Rukundo, a former Rwandan army chaplain, was serving in a Geneva parish when he was arrested and accused of compiling lists of Tutsis to be executed. Father Rukundo denies the charges.
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