(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) The Tanzanian government has voiced its readiness to extradite Jamil Mukulu, leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group, to Uganda to face prosecution, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said Friday.
"For two and a half weeks, we have been engaged in looking into what's next after we caught him," Membe told reporters on Friday in Dar es Salaam, the country's commercial capital.
"Initially, Tanzania was thinking of handing him over to UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but the international body refused the deal," he added.
According to the minister, Tanzania was also thinking of prosecuting him in a Tanzanian court after hearing the charges leveled against him by Uganda.
This idea, however, was also dropped.
"The only option remaining is to extradite him to Uganda through Interpol after receiving an extradition application," Tanzania's top diplomat said.
He added that, after receiving an extradition request from Uganda, Tanzania would take Mukulu to court for criminal acts allegedly committed in Uganda.
"Then he will be taken to Uganda through Interpol," he explained.
As to why Mukulu should not be charged in Tanzania for the group's alleged involvement in the murder of two Tanzanian troops in the DRC, Membe said that Muluku faced more serious charges in Uganda.
"We could have charged him here, but we think this can be done well in Uganda, where he faces several charges," the minister said.
"Let us [Tanzania] leave this matter in the hands of our neighbor, Uganda, to charge him for us," he added.
Mukulu has been in the custody of Tanzanian police for the last couple of weeks, with Uganda having sent its top police officers to Tanzania to negotiate his extradition.
Mukulu is wanted by the Ugandan authorities for several attacks, such as the 1998 Kicwamba massacre, in which scores of sleeping students were burned to death in their dormitories in a town near the DRC border.
The ADF is also accused of having carried out deadly bombings in capital Kampala in the late 1990s before a military operation forced the rebels to set up camp in eastern Congo.
The rebels have since been largely quiet, though they continue to stage sporadic attacks on towns in eastern DRC.
This year, the Ugandan authorities linked the ADF to several murders in the country.
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