Nuncio's murder in Burundi was planned from top, says journalist

Published: 2006-12-14

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- A former president and other high-ranking officials in Burundi have been accused of masterminding the December 2003 assassination of the apostolic nuncio to Burundi, reported South Africa's national weekly, The Southern Cross. Archbishop Michael Courtney, an Irish Vatican diplomat, was ambushed and shot several times 25 miles from the nation's capital, Bujumbura, as he was traveling by car to southern Burundi, an area that was a stronghold of rebels from the National Liberation Forces, who were accused of carrying out the attack. The archbishop -- whose term as nuncio was about to end when he was killed -- died Dec. 29, 2003, during emergency surgery at a nearby hospital. The National Liberation Forces always denied government allegations that they had carried out the attack, and the rebels blamed government forces for the killing. The Southern Cross obtained a summary of a 30-page dossier in French by a Burundian investigative journalist currently hiding in southern Africa. The Southern Cross reported the journalist's story Dec. 13.

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