PARIS – The Court of Appeal of Paris will hear the extradition request of a former Rwandan sub-prefect, Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, on November 7.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) filed the request to have Ntawukuriryayo extradited and face trial for Genocide related crimes.

A week before, on 31 October, it will have rendered a decision on his request for release. Ntawukuriryayo was arrested on October 16 in France at the request of the ICTR. 

During the hearing, the president of the investigative chamber, Edith Boizette, proceeded to the formal notification of the charges of "Genocide, complicity to Genocide” retained by the ICTR against the former sub-prefect of Gisagara (southern Rwanda).

He is accused of being responsible for the deaths of 25, 000 persons between 21 April and 25 April 1994.  Ntawukuriryayo, born in 1942 in Gisagara, arrived in France in 1999 and to reside in Carcassonne (Aude) since 2000.

His lawyer, Thierry Gréciano, specified that his client was legally in France. A group of twenty people, members of his family and friends, went to the court to show their support for him. He was arrested under the terms of an arrest warrant issued by the ICTR.  

In April 2006, 32 Rwandan nationals pressed charges in Carcassonne against Ntawukuriryayo for Genocide and complicity to Genocide. 

An order of non-receivability was rendered in August due to the reason that the police had not found him at the address indicated by the plaintiffs.

In a letter addressed at the beginning of the week to the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal of Montpellier (Hérault), the lawyers for the plaintiffs, Sophie Dechaumet and Michel Laval, assured that Ntawukuriryayo was arrested on October 16 in Carcassonne ‘at the residence mentioned in the complaint’ of 2006.

Agencies