Rwanda, Belgium agree to transfer priest's case to Brussels

Published: 2005-10-28

KIGALI, Rwanda (CNS) -- The Rwandan and Belgian governments have agreed to transfer the case of a Belgian priest accused of helping to mastermind the 1994 genocide from Kigali to Brussels. However, Father Guy Theunis, a member of the Missionaries of Africa, still faces a hearing before a Rwandan court in early November, although an exact date had not been set by Oct. 28. Officials from the Rwandan ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs were unavailable for comment, but a Belgian official in Kigali, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande signed the agreement late Oct. 27. Father Theunis, who worked in Rwanda from 1970 to 1994, was arrested in early September in the transit lounge of Kigali International Airport on his way back to Brussels from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was accused of complicity in genocide because he reproduced quotations from various publications, including some published in the extremist anti-Tutsi magazine Kangura, in the intellectual journal Dialogue, of which he was editor.

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