Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the UN International...

Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), was to seek the extradition to the ICTR in Tanzania of Lieutenant-Colonel Tharcisse Muvunyi, a Rwandan genocide suspect living under temporary asylum in Britain. Tharcisse Muvunyi, a commander in the former Rwandese army in the southern prefecture of Butare, was arrested in London on 5 February following the issuing of an international warrant by the ICTR seeking his surrender. Lieutenant-Colonel Tharcisse Muvunyi was wanted in Rwanda on 17 charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Since Britain has no extradition treaty with Rwanda, which has the death penalty, it was not willing to hand him over to the Kigali authorities. The ICTR, which sits in Arusha, Tanzania, was established in November 1994 to try those accused of perpetrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rwanda in 1994, when as many as one million people were massacred. To date seven individuals have been sentenced to prison terms by the ICTR.