A French court on Wednesday refused to authorise the extradition of a Rwandan former minister Hyacinthe Nsengiyumva Rafiki accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi.
Rwanda has been seeking his extradition since 2008.
The Paris court of appeal ruled that the charges contained in the extradition request were insufficiently precise and could not be directly linked to Nsengiyumva.
The ruling also stated that it was reasonable to question whether the extradition request had been politically motivated, as the former minister’s legal team argued.
Nsengiyumva was one of the founder members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel group formed by ethnic Hutus accused of involvement in the genocide.
In a separate case, the appeal court also ruled against extradition for Venuste Nyombayire, a former senior official in the region of Bugesera in the east of Rwanda.
Like Nsengiyumva, Nyombayire faces possible legal proceedings in France following the filing of war crimes charges over his alleged involvement in the death of 15 Tutsi orphans.
Frenchnews
Leave a Reply