Father Johannes Rivoire will not have to set foot in Canada to account to his alleged victims in court. The former missionary, accused of sexual assault on young Inuit in the 1970s, now lives in a retirement home in Lyon. Establishment from which he will not be dislodged. France has rejected the extradition request concerning him, Canadian authorities said on Wednesday, who say they are exploring other avenues.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada (SPPC) explains in a statement that the French government refused the request because French law prohibits the extradition of its own citizens and that “too much time has elapsed between the events and laying of charges”. This last point also prevents the French authorities from prosecuting Father Rivoire in France, the statement said.
Never worried despite an arrest warrant
Johannes Rivoire is the subject of a Canadian arrest warrant for having sexually assaulted a child in the Canadian Arctic between January 1974 and December 1979. He had already been targeted by a first arrest warrant between 1998 and 2017 for sexual assaults against three minors this time. But he was never overly worried. At the time, the Canadian police never summoned him and the French authorities did not denounce him, either.
The interested party has been denying it for thirty years. Confronted, last September, with a delegation of Inuits who came to support his extradition request, he remained on his positions, refuting any accusation.
“Sorry to see this serious injustice happening again”
“All possible legal remedies to obtain the extradition of Johannes Rivoire from France or his prosecution in this State have been exhausted”, deplores the SPPC. Canada’s Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, said in a tweet that it was “sorry to see this grave injustice happening again”, while stressing that there were still leads that could lead to the father’s arrest. Rivoire.
The criminal service specifies that it is working in concert with the federal police so that Interpol disseminates a wanted notice that could lead to the arrest of Johannes Rivoire in another country.