Papal Envoy Shot Dead in Burundi Ambush

The Vatican's ambassador to Burundi was shot dead yesterday when his car was raked with gunfire in an apparent ambush which government and rebel forces blamed on each other.

Archbishop Michael Courtney, a 58-year-old Irishman and mediator in peace talks, was wounded in the head, shoulder and leg at a village 25 miles south of the capital, Bujumbura. He later died from a haemorrhage in hospital.

President Domitien Ndayizeye and his deputy, Alphonse Kadege, arrived at the hospital when the archbishop's death was announced.

The archbishop was returning to Bujumbura from the funeral of a priest when the ambush took place. A priest was also hurt, but the driver and a hitchhiker escaped.

President Ndayizeye blamed rebels from the National Liberation Forces and promised an investigation. "It was not an accident," he said.

Annicet Niyongabo, the governor of Bururi province, said the assassination had been planned: "They first fired into the tyres and then approached to execute him. They could not mistake the car for another one because it was flying the Vatican flag."

The FNL vehemently denied responsibility and blamed gov ernment troops. A spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, said: "We knew where he lived _ We could have killed him if we wished. We strongly condemn those who killed him."

A Vatican spokesman last night expressed "deepest sadness and dismay" at the news.

Human rights groups regularly accuse rebel and government fighters, many of them young and ill-disciplined, of random violence and banditry, and the killing may have been the work of bungling robbers or a trigger-happy fighter.

Burundi is a tiny former Belgian colony neighbouring Rwanda in central Africa. A bloody and complex civil war has claimed 200,000 lives in the past decade.

As the papal nuncio - the Vatican's highest-ranking diplomats - Archbishop Courtney was a key negotiator.

"He was very active in the peace process and pretty widely known and respected by all sides," one western diplomat said. "I think it is unlikely he would have been targeted deliberately."

Archbishop Courtney, who was born in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, was ordained in 1968 after studying economics and law at University College Dublin.

He served widely in Africa, Cuba, the former Yugoslavia and India, and was described as one of the church's most experienced diplomats.