RWANDA: Rwanda has arrested a Belgian priest and accused him of inciting people to participate in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a Rwandan prosecutor said yesterday.
Rwandan authorities arrested Guy Theunis, a member of the Catholic order of the "White Fathers", in the transit area of the Kigali airport on Tuesday, Belgium's foreign ministry said.
Rwanda's national prosecutor, Emmanuel Rukangira, said Fr Theunis is accused of publishing articles in the Kangura newspaper that incited Rwandan Hutus to commit acts of genocide. His case will be forwarded to the traditional "gacaca" courts that Rwanda is using to clear a backlog of cases from the genocide, Mr Rukangira said.
Fr Theunis left Rwanda in 1994 at the time of the genocide in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a three-month bloodbath from which Rwanda is still recovering.
Fr Theunis, who was on his way to Belgium via Rwanda from another country in Africa when he was arrested, was a missionary in the central African nation from 1970 to 1994.
Belgian foreign minister Karel De Gucht said on Wednesday he was surprised Rwanda had not informed Belgium about the case.
"Especially since our country has proved in the past that people who were involved in the 1994 genocide are effectively prosecuted," he said in a statement.
Belgian courts convicted two Rwandan brothers in June and in 2001 convicted four Rwandans of involvement in the genocide.
Rwandan foreign minister Charles Murigande said yesterday his country was preparing a formal response to Belgium.
Fr Theunis is the first European to be imprisoned in Rwanda over genocide charges, but not the first charged in the slaughter, Mr Rukangira said.
Belgian journalist Georges Ruggiu was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty at a UN tribunal in 2000 to inciting genocide through radio broadcasts.