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Gunmen Kill Popeâs Ambassador in Burundi
We ran this yesterday. Adds detail...Gunmen killed the popeâs ambassador in Burundi on Monday, firing on his car as he was returning from a funeral, and the countryâs president said the envoy was deliberately targeted. "Watson! From the nature of the shooting, the spray pattern of the bullets, the prior shooting and the physical evidence, I conclude that the victim was deliberately targeted!" "Brilliant, Holmes, brilliant!" Archbishop Michael Courtney was shot in the head, shoulder and a limb and died during surgery at Prince Louis Rwagasore Hospital, a hospital official said. President Domitien Ndayizeye said the 58-year-old Courtney was deliberately targeted. "It was not an accident; he was killed," Ndayizeye told reporters. He and other officials, however, did not say what the motive for the killing might be. The gunmen had killed a soldier at the site just before the car arrived. And they didnât stop traffic? The shooting took place in an area about 30 miles south of the capital, Bujumbura, on Lake Tanganyika that is a stronghold of rebels of the National Liberation Forces, or FLN, the only group that has not signed a peace deal with the transitional government. The FLN denied responsibility in the killing. "Lies! All lies!" "The assailants had planned to kill him," Annicet The "kick me" note on the envoyâs back. "Monsignor Courtney was transported with great difficulty to the closest hospital in Bujumbura, but never regained consciousness due to his grave wounds," according to a Vatican statement. "The extensive hemorrhaging, operated on after the ambush, could not be stopped," and Courtney died during emergency surgery. The attack occurred just outside Minago in Bururi province on the main road north toward Bujumbura. Courtney was returning from farther south in the province where he had attended the funeral of a Burundian priest whose body had been repatriated from Rome two days earlier, Emile Hicintuka, a local official said. Pasteur Habimana, an FNL spokesman, denied charges that the group was responsible for Courtneyâs death. "We knew where he lived ... We could have killed him if we wished. We strongly condemn those who killed him," he said. Nod nod, nudge nudge, wink wink. Maj. Kandeke, the army commander in the region where the shooting occurred, said the FNL had attacked the market in Minago on Saturday. "We are still fighting them," he said. Evidently stopping innocents from entering a combat operations zone isnât a high priority. Courtney was one of the churchâs most experienced diplomats with over 30 years of work in the church. Born in 1945 in Nenagh, 85 miles southwest of Dublin, Courtney was ordained in 1968. Beginning in 1980, he was a papal representative in South Africa, then in Zimbabwe, Senegal, India, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Egypt, the 2000 announcement said. Prior to going to Burundi, he worked for five years as special envoy in Strasbourg, France, monitoring the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. Posted by: Steve White 2003-12-30 |
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