The extradition request made by Canada against Father Johannes Rivoire, accused of sexually assaulting young Inuit in the 1970s while on a mission in the Canadian Far North, was rejected on Wednesday 26 October, by France.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) explains in a press release that the French government refused the request because French law prohibits the extradition of its own citizens and that it “too much time elapsed between the events and the filing of the charges”. This last point also prevents the French authorities from prosecuting Father Rivoire in France, the statement said.
The French-Canadian priest, who currently lives at the age of 92 in a retirement home in Lyon, is the subject of a Canadian arrest warrant for having sexually assaulted a child in the Canadian Arctic between January 1974 and December 1979. The religious had already targeted by a first arrest warrant between 1998 and 2017 for sexual assaults against three minors.
Allegations again denied in September
For his part, Johannes Rivoire had again denied all the allegations during a meeting organized in September with a delegation of Inuits who came to support the request for extradition to France.
“All possible legal remedies to obtain the extradition of Johannes Rivoire from France or his prosecution in this State have been exhausted”concluded the PPSC.
Canadian Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said in a tweet it was “Sorry to see this serious injustice happening again”, while recalling that there were still leads that could lead to the arrest of Father Rivoire. The SPPC specifies, in fact, that it is working together with the federal police so that Interpol disseminates a wanted notice that could lead to the arrest of Johannes Rivoire in another country.