| http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/07/15/stifgneur02002.html
Vatican 'saves priest' from genocide trial Jon Swain ITALY is refusing to hand over to the international war crimes tribunal a Rwandan Catholic priest wanted on genocide charges. He is accused of ordering his own church to be bulldozed, crushing and killing up to 2,500 parishioners. Italian judicial authorities claim that an ad hoc decree is required for them to co-operate with the United Nations tribunal for Rwanda. Authoritative sources say the true reason for Italy's stalling is discreet pressure from the Vatican. Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, says that, as a UN member state, Italy is in breach of its international obligations. "It's a scandal. Belgrade has handed over Milosevic, but Rome won't grant me this arrest," she complained after announcing that three other Rwandan suspects, including a priest, had been arrested on the tribunal's orders in Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands on Thursday. Del Ponte did not identify her target in Italy, who is the subject of a secret indictment, but well-informed sources in the Hague and in Rome confirmed that the wanted priest is Father Athanase Seromba. A Hutu, Seromba had allegedly sided in 1994 with a campaign to exterminate Rwanda's Tutsi minority. The destruction of his church at Nyange on April 16, 1994, was one of the most notorious massacres of the genocide in which 800,000 died. Seromba travelled afterwards to Florence with the help of supporters in the Catholic church. He rejoined the priesthood under an assumed name. In November 1999 The Sunday Times found he had established a new life for himself as a deputy priest at a church in Florence under the name of Don Anastasio Sumba Bura. The UN tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania, opened an investigation and began collecting evidence. Del Ponte formally requested Seromba's extradition from Italy at the beginning of this month. But statements emanating from the Catholic church in Florence suggest it stands by him. "Everyone has a positive impression of him," said Riccardo Bigi, a spokesman for the diocese. "He's definitely not willing to talk about Rwanda, but that is understandable because he suffered a great deal. From what we know of him, it's highly improbable that the accusations against him are true." In Rwanda in 1994 the church was the single most powerful institution after the government. But its clergy were not exempt from the country's pervasive racism and it failed miserably to prevent the genocide. The Vatican has since ignored appeals to purge its ranks of suspected killers. A few weeks ago it even questioned the objectivity of a Belgian court that gave two Rwandan Benedictine nuns long jail sentences for genocide. Rakiya Omaar, the director of African Rights, a respected London-based human rights organisation, said: "At the very least the church should have mounted an inquiry." Callers to the parish church of San Mauro a Signa in Florence yesterday were first told that Seromba was on holiday, but he later emerged briefly to deny the accusations. " I had nothing to do with the Nyange massacre," he said. "Leave me in peace, I don't want to talk." The Vatican declined to comment on allegations that it had put pressure on Italy to block Seromba's arrest. The priest's comfortable exile cannot end soon enough for the small band of survivors of Nyange, however. "I lost my father, my wife, my child, my stepmother, my young brother, my sisters and many others in the church," said Bertin Ndakubana, a parish councillor. "Where was the servant of God, Seromba, at that moment?" Additional reporting: John Follain, Rome |
