ARUSHA - The Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, (ICTR) has requested France to try Fr. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta, two Genocide suspects arrested in France.

Tim Gallimore, the spokesman of the ICTR Prosecutor confirmed the decision which was taken on Tuesday.

"Trial Chamber referral bench granted the Rule 11 bis request of the Prosecutor to transfer to France for trial the cases of Laurent Bucyibaruta and Wenceslas Munyeshyaka,” he said in an e-mail.

Rwanda’s Special Representative to the ICTR, Alloys Mutabingwa, said:

They passed that decision but I am still reading and digesting it. Right now I cannot comment anything regarding this,” Mutabingwa said by phone from Arusha, Tanzania yesterday.

"The Prosecutor submitted the transfer applications on 12 June under the Tribunal’s Rule 11 bis which allows for the transfer of ICTR indictees to national jurisdictions for trial.

The transfers are part of the Tribunal’s Completion Strategy which calls for all trials to be completed by the end of 2008 and all appeals by 2010 when the ICTR will close,” the court said in a statement.

The rule states that the President of the ICTR "may designate a Trial Chamber for the purpose of referring a case to the authorities of any State that is willing to prosecute the accused in its own courts”.

Munyeshyaka, a former parish priest of Kigali’s St. Famille church and Bucyibaruta, who was Prefet (Governor) of Gikongoro have, since July this year, been arrested twice in France under a warrant from the UN Genocide tribunal.

Subsequently, the decision by ICTR to drop their demand to have the suspects transferred to Arusha was announced in the Paris court that was due to rule on the duo’s possible transfer from France on Wednesday.

The court later postponed the ruling until next month.

According to the ICTR-prepared indictments, the two are charged with among other crimes, genocide and incitement to commit genocide, extermination, murder and rape.

Munyeshyaka was last year tried in absentia alongside Maj. Gen Laurent Munyakazi on the killings of hundreds of people who had sought refuge at St Famille church.

Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Munyakazi has since appealed to the Supreme Court after the Military High Court upheld an earlier ruling by the Military Tribunal.

Rwanda had earlier asked for Munyeshyaka, who has since after the Genocide, been living and working in France as a parish priest to either come and serve his sentence in Rwanda, or request for a re-trial for which he is constitutionally entitled to.

Another Genocide suspect who was recently arrested in France and awaiting extradition proceedings is Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, a former local leader in the Southern Province.

ENDS