22.05.08 - RWANDA/FRANCE - FRENCH COURT DEFERS RWANDAN EXTRADITION REQUEST TO OCTOBER

Paris, 22 May 2008 (FH) - The Court of Appeal of Paris deferred Wednesday until 8 October the examination of extradition request of a Maths teacher Isaac Kamali, 59, wanted by Rwanda for the 1994 genocide.

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The delay is attributed to French authorities' failure to transmit to Kigali additional information requested by the Paris court.

Kamali, who was sentenced to death in 2003 in Rwanda, obtained French citizenship in 2002 and lived in the south-west of France where he was teaching maths. He has been the subject of arrest warrant from Kigali authorities since 2004.

In June 2007, he was stopped by the United States and sent back to France, where he was placed in detention and then released on 14 August.

In February, the Investigation Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Paris requested from the Rwandan legal authorities to give more precise details to their extradition request; in particular, to specify if Mr Kamali would be tried by a conventional court or semi-traditional Gacaca court.

The Rwandan government accuses Kamali of genocide and crime against humanity in Gitarama, Central Rwanda. Kamali is number 26 on the Rwandan list of 93 fugitives of first category.

Before and during the Genocide, he was an official in the then Ministry of Public Works and Transport and an insider in ruling MRND party, which allegedly orchestrated the killing spree.

He is, among others, accused of participating in acts of killing, looting and destruction of ethnic Tutsis and their property in the former Nyabikenke Commune in Gitarama prefecture (now in Muhanga district) from where he hails.

The accused is also implicated in the killings of hundreds of people in Nyamirambo and Kicukiro in Kigali City.

He is not facing prosecution in France nor before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

AP/PB/MM/SC

© Hirondelle News Agency