Rwanda "shocked" as French free genocide suspects

By Arthur Asiimwe

KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda is shocked by a French appeals court ruling that freed two Rwandans indicted by Kigali and an international court over the country's 1994 genocide, and its foreign minister called the decision absurd on Thursday.

"We are shocked and surprised by the decision ... Going ahead to release such suspects accused of the biggest crimes like genocide is absurd," Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande told Reuters.

Rwanda wanted Roman Catholic priest Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and another man, Laurent Bucyibaruta, who have both lived in France for years, to be extradited.

The two men were arrested this month by French police under a warrant from the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is prosecuting top architects of the genocide.

The Paris appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the arrest procedure was flawed legally.

"They claim the warrants had defects in writing, but we believe they should have held them while the mistakes in the warrants were sorted out," Murigande said in Kigali.

A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office in Paris said the appeals court ruled arrest warrants could be issued for the ICTR only in cases where the ICTR was seeking to judge suspects itself or if there was concern the suspects might flee.

However, the applications filed specified only that the two should be arrested pending a decision by the ICTR on whether it wished to judge the case or hand it to authorities in France, where both have been under investigation for several years.