Kigali, Rwanda - A Belgian priest arrested this week on suspicion of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide will face crimes against humanity charges before a village tribunal, judicial officials said.
The case of Father Guy Theunis is to be referred to prosecutors who are expected to transfer it to so-called gacaca (pronounced "gachacha") courts that have been set up to deal with genocide suspects, they said.
"His case will be transferred Thursday to the prosecutors who will transfer it to the gacaca," said prosecutor Emmanuel Rukangira.
Meanwhile the Missionary Society of Africa (MSA) to which Theunis belongs said it was stunned by his arrest and insisted he was innocent of the "totally unfounded" charges.
Theunis was detained by Rwandan security officials in Kigali on Tuesday as he was about to board a connecting flight to Brussels after a week-long trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.
He is accused of complicity to commit genocide by allegedly inciting ethnic divisions amid violence during the 100-day killing spree in 1994, during which some 800,000 mainly Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutu extremists, officials said.
Rukangira said Theunis, who worked in Rwanda from 1970 to 1994 before being evacuated during the genocide and stationed in Italy, has been held for questioning since his arrest.
The specifics of the charges against Theunis -- who had been part of the editorial team of "Dialogue," a Rwandan magazine opposed to the genocide -- were not immediately clear.
However, judicial sources said Theunis was accused of republishing extracts of items from an extremist magazine known as "Kangura" which they said incited hatred and violence.
In Rome, SMA's head Gerard Chabanon said the order had little information about the case or the charges but was stunned by Theunis' arrest.
"It's completely unbelievable, we are stunned and shocked, the news is an absolute bombshell," Chabanon told AFP.
"Given his stated opinions and his commitment, the accusations against him are totally unfounded," he said. "But unfortunately, you can interpret the notion of participating in the ideology of genocide in many ways."
"His past speaks in his favour, he always defended human rights and carried on doing so after being evacuated from Kigali as a matter of urgency after the genocide," Chabanon said.
The missionary group has some 1,700 missionaries in 42 nations in Africa.
In Brussels on Wednesday, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht also said he was "astonished" by the charges levelled at Theunis.
He said Kigali had not supplied Belgium with details of the case, and asked for an explanation and information from Rwandan officials.
Several church leaders, including Catholic priests, have been tried and convicted by local Rwandan courts for participating in the genocide.
The Tanzania-based, UN-backed court prosecuting the alleged ringleaders of the massacres has indicted three Catholic priests but only one case has thus far gone to trial.
In that case, lawyers for Father Athanase Seromba have said they will start calling witnesses in his defense before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on October 31.