Russian photo exhibition opens

A Russian photo exhibition of Rwandans, towns and landscape is going on at the Museum of Natural Science in Kigali.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

A Russian photo exhibition of Rwandans, towns and landscape is going on at the Museum of Natural Science in Kigali.

The ceremony was opened on December 13th by the Russian Ambassador, Mirgayas Shirinskiy who expressed sympathy to Rwandans and the beauty of its nature.
"The exposition will help to develop friendship and a good understanding between Rwandans and the people of Russia,” he said.

The exhibition contains highly artistic works by Russian professional and amateur photographers and will run until December 24. Entrance is free and doors are open between 10 AM and 4 PM everyday.

Present at the photo show were the Apostolic Nuncio, as well as the Ambassadors of Belgium, Burundi, Egypt and Germany among others..
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Naturalized French in 2002, Kamali was arrested in France on 22 June, after being sent back from the United States, under the terms of an international arrest warrant issued by Rwanda in October 2004.

Rwanda requests his extradition for two reasons. The first relates to his alleged participation in the genocide in the prefecture of Gitarama. The second is, so he serves a sentence of life in prison for which he was sentenced by a Rwandan court in March 2003. He had initially been sentenced to death, but since capital punishment has been abolished in Rwanda.

"The extradition request does not correspond to the usual criteria of a state that wishes to cooperate with other states”, underlined the representative of the prosecution, Jean-Charles Lecompte. According to him, Rwanda, which "wishes to integrate the geographical surface of democratic societies”, must "give a certain number of precise details that are missing”.

Jean-Marie Biju-Duval, lawyer for Kamali, asked the court not to grant this request by the prosecutor and to reject the extradition request which "comes from a country which does have law ". The death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment, he said. "There is a great risk that he be subjected to torture”, he assured by asking "France not to be the instrument of a criminal regime”.
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