Kigali, Rwanda - Rwanda will conditionally accept a request from Belgium to hand over a Belgian missionary charged with inciting and planning Rwanda's genocide, the attorney general said Wednesday.
A Rwandan community court in September charged Belgian priest Guy Theunis with inciting and planning the 1994 genocide in which more than half a million people were killed.
Attorney General Jean de Dieu Mucyo said Rwanda would send Theunis to Belgium if it was guaranteed "that he will stand trial."
In Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said in a statement he would submit the case Rwanda has prepared against Theunis "to a judicial inquiry."
"At that moment, Mr. Theunis would be transported to Belgium," the statement continued.
Government spokesman Rudy Huygelen said later that Belgium hopes Theunis will be sent to Belgium "in a matter of weeks." He said Belgian and Rwandan officials were discussing the transfer.
After the Rwanda community court ruled that Theunis was an alleged leader of the country's 100-day slaughter in 1994, the case was transferred for trial to a conventional court, where the missionary faces the death penalty.
Belgium has no death penalty. Its request for Theunis' handover was sent to Rwanda September 28, said Emmanuel Rukangira, a senior prosecutor in charge of the priest's case.
Theunis -- who worked as the editor of Rwanda's periodical Le Dialogue -- denied allegations that he incited the genocide by reproducing articles from the Kangura, a newspaper that promoted the killing of members of the Tutsi ethnic minority.
A U.N. tribunal has convicted the editor of Kangura, Hassan Ngeze, and sentenced him to life in prison.
Belgium first made an approach to have Theunis' case transferred from Rwanda last month when De Gucht met with his Rwandan counterpart, Charles Murigande.
Under the proposed proceedings for Theunis, a Belgian judicial committee would travel to Rwanda and assess the case. If Rwanda agrees, the case could be transferred to a Belgian investigating judge and the missionary would be transferred to Belgium.
Theunis was arrested in September in Kigali when he was passing through from South Africa.