The African Union has called for the "unconditional and immediate" release of Rwanda's intelligence chief arrested in Britain, Rwandan's foreign minister said Friday after meetings with the 54-member bloc.
General Karenzi Karake, who was arrested on a Spanish-issued warrant last week, was released in London on Thursday on bail of £1.0 million ($1.6 million, 1.4 million euros). He must report to British police daily.
The AU's Peace and Security Council met with Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo on Friday.
"The outcome of this discussion has been the urgent call for the unconditional and immediate release of General Karenzi," Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told reporters, warning of the "abuse of international justice by some non-African states."
Rwanda has reacted furiously to Karenzi's arrest, with President Paul Kagame saying it showed "absolute arrogance and contempt".
British police said he was arrested for alleged "war crimes against civilians" but a Spanish judicial source said he was wanted on terrorism charges over the killing of nine Spanish citizens in Rwanda in the 1990s.
On Wednesday, Spain's National Court made a formal request for Britain to hand over Karenzi, a judicial source said.
Mushikiwabo, speaking alongside foreign ministers from Ethiopia and Uganda as well as Kenya's justice minister, said there had been an "awakening of the Peace and Security Council and indeed the continent to the grave danger that faces Africa with the abuse of the international law, particularly the universal jurisdiction."
The meeting comes days after the controversy sparked by South Africa's failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir while he was in the country, despite Bashir being wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes charges.
Bashir's case has come to epitomise the widespread opposition among African governments to international prosecutions of African leaders.
AU peace and security council chief Smail Chergui said it was "the right time to scale-up our engagement" on the issue, warning it could "violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of African states and attempt to erode and subordinate our African legal systems."
Karake was part of a circle of top military officers in the former Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel movement.
Mushikiwabo said the arrest was politically motivated.
"Those random judges do not fall from the sky. There is a political system that has been activating conveniently these arrest warrants," Mushikiwabo added. "It's purely harassment."