Rwandan soldiers watch the skulls of victims of the 1994 genocide. (file photo)
A court in France has ordered the release of an ex-colonel wanted in Rwanda in connection with the African country™s 1994 genocide.
On Thursday, the court in Douai in northern France ordered the release of Laurent Serubuga and rejected Rwanda™s extradition request.
Serubuga was captured under an international arrest warrant issued by Rwanda in northern French city of Cambrai in July.
The 75-year-old was the Rwandan Army™s deputy chief of staff during the genocide in 1994, when the ethnic majority Hutus killed some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis.
The genocide occurred after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down on April 6, 1994.It lasted approximately 100 days and hence is called the œ100 Days of Hell.”
The court said the former colonel cannot be prosecuted for the crime as it was not included in the African country™s criminal code when the violence happened.
The court also rejected the murder charges against Serubuga, saying the arrest warrant was issued more than10 years after the genocide.
Alain Gautier, the head of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, expressed his disappointment, saying Serubuga was an important œfigure in the genocide.”
œIt’s sadly a decision we were expecting. It’s the 15th or 16th time that France has refused an extradition to Rwanda,” he said.
In 2011, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, described as the mastermind of the genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
SAB/KA
Copyright: Press TV