Italian government adopts bill on cooperation with ICTR

The Italian on Thursday adopted a bill on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), AFP reported. The bill has now been approved by both houses of parliament, a process which could take several months, AFP quoted a justice ministry spokesman as saying. “Once the law is approved, I think all the legal tools will be in place to allow international warrants of arrest,” he said. Italy has of late been under fire for its failure to extradite a Rwandan priest, Father Athanase Seromba, who is being sought for genocide. In 1999, an African Rights report accused him of helping orchestrate the massacre of some 2,000 Tutsi refugees at his parish in Nyange in April 1994. Seromba has said that he had already left Nyange when the killings began. Seromba who had been working as a priest in the Florence archdiocese since 1997, left his parish last month to avoid the media after the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said she was “stupefied” that Italy had refused to cooperate with her investigation. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell the UN Security Council that Italy is a country that doesn’t like to cooperate. I hope not,” she was quoted as saying in an interview with the Italian Tirreno newspaper.