{{Zambia has reaffirmed its promise to continue protecting Rwandan refugees in the southern Africa country whether or not the refugees are genocide suspects.}}
The Zambia Home Affairs Ministry official Jacob Mpepo told journalists in the capital Lusaka Thursday that his country is not compelled to extradite 1994 Rwandan genocide suspects due to a lack of a bilateral treaty, an official said.
“We don’t have an extradition treaty with Rwanda. We have with other countries, not Rwanda,” he said.
Rwanda has called on Zambia several times, to screen its refugees and hand over those it claims were perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
“To extradite a Rwanda who lives here can be a bit problematic,” the minister said.
He added: “I was involved in arresting a lot of those people, but when we did the screening against the UN list of suspects, we only found one and that person was actually taken to Arusha.”
He said Zambia was among the first countries to respond to the call by the UN to arrest suspects of the genocide living in the country as refugees.
Although not obliged to extradite any suspect, the government can arrest those found wanting, said Mr Mpepo
Rwandan nationals residing in Zambia recently rejected a request by Kigali to give details of their names to obtain their national passports fearing they will be targeted.
NMG
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