Belgian police question priest accused of genocide

Belgian Roman Catholic missionary Guy Theunis, accused of taking part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, arrived in Brussels on Sunday from Kigali, 11 days after the High Court of Rwanda ruled that he be sent to his homeland where he might stand trial. He was accompanied by a Belgian diplomat. Theunis was transferred directly from the plane to the Federal Police headquarters in Brussels, where he underwent questioning all day by a team of police specialised in crimes against humanity. "So far there is no question of issuing an arrest warrant against the priest," the Belga News Agency quoted a police spokesman as saying. He said it could take "several weeks" to conclude the process with Theunis, due notably to the need to translate documents. He is a free man for now. Rwandan police arrested Theunis, 60, on 6 September, when he was in transit from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He is charged in Rwanda with "incitation to genocide" by reprinting in a press review - mainly intended for diplomats - articles from an extremist publication, called Kangura that incited the country's majority Hutus to kill its minority Tutsi population. A UN tribunal sentenced Kangura's editor, Hassan Ngeze, to life imprisonment. Theunis is also accused of reproducing biased information and sending them to Europe during the first days of the genocide. He is also accused of masterminding of killings in and around a Kigali church; a charge that observers think is unwarranted given that Theunis left Rwanda seven days after the start of the killings. Theunis denied all the accusations levelled against him. Since the beginning of this case, Brussels had requested that Theunis be handed to Belgium for trial. Rwanda has been receptive to Belgium's request, crediting it with a commitment to fight genocide. In 2001, a Brussels court convicted four Rwandans for their roles in the genocide and sentenced them to between 12 and 20 years imprisonment. Two more Rwandans were convicted in Belgium in June 2005 and sentenced to at least 10 years. On Sunday, responding to reporters' questions about a possible reward for the return of Theunis to Brussels, Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Karel de Gucht said there had been no favours offered Rwanda. "Nobody asked me anything," he said.