Comoros demands France extradite rebel leader

Comoros demanded on Thursday that France hand over a rebel leader wanted by the Indian Ocean archipelago for crimes against humanity, and its troops fired tear gas to quell protests against the former colonial power.

Mohamed Bacar, the 45-year-old self-declared leader of Anjouan island, was flown by French military aircraft to the island of Reunion from Mayotte, where he had fled after a lightning offensive by African Union and Comorian forces.

Paris rejected claims it helped Bacar flee Anjouan but had said it would move him to the French island of Reunion after anti-Bacar protests erupted on French-run Mayotte. It said Bacar had asked for political asylum.

France, along with the United States, backed the operation to topple Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme who seized power in 2001 and clung on with an illegal election last year in Anjouan - one of Comoros' three islands.

Many Anjouan residents accuse him of ruling through threats of violence and crushing dissent with torture and intimidation, and some Comorians have accused France of helping him escape.

"We have notified France that we want Colonel Mohamed Bacar and all the fugitive rebels to be extradited to Comoros," acting Foreign Minister Houmadi Abdallah told reporters.

"We reminded the French authorities ... that the international arrest warrants against them are still in effect."

French Defence Ministry spokesman Laurent Tesseire said Mayotte authorities had brought Bacar and men accompanying him to the island's airport and requested his transfer to Reunion.

Two French military planes carrying Bacar and his men landed in Reunion a little before 1 a.m. on Friday (2200 GMT on Thursday) and they were driven from there to a police station.

PROTESTS ERUPT

Angry demonstrators - many of them refugees from Anjouan - took to the streets of Mamoudzou, the main town in Mayotte.

There were also protests in Moroni, capital of the biggest Comorian island, where joint AU-Comorian forces fired tear gas to disperse crowds waving banners denouncing "enemy France".

Demonstrations also took place outside the central bank, which employs several French workers, and the French Embassy, where protesters called for the ambassador to be expelled.

One French national said the French school in Moroni was closed by protests, stranding several teachers and students.

With a history of assassinations, mercenary invasions and some 20 coups or attempted rebellions since independence from France in 1975, Comoros is notorious for its political instability - which many locals blame on French meddling.

Islanders are bitter that French soldier-of-fortune Bob Denard, who was involved in four coups and attempted coups in Comoros, did not face justice on the islands before his death.

Denard claimed to enjoy covert French support for operations meant to retain France's influence in its former colonies.

Despite turbulent ties between the two nations, France remains Comoros' major trading partner.