Rome - A Rwandan priest accused of ordering 2,000 ethnic Tutsis to be bulldozed in his church in 1994 in an atrocity for which two fellow priests were sentenced to death shrugged off allegations of genocide yesterday.
Father Athanase Serumba (36), who was reached by telephone at the church in Florence where he is now working, chuckled when he was asked for his reaction to a report in London's Sunday Times that said it had unmasked him as a murderer being sheltered by the Church.
He would not comment on witnesses' accounts in the report and said: "I have no time" before he put down the telephone.
A church official refused to comment until "these very shameful and totally baseless" accusations had been discussed with the local bishop.