Today's Date:

Communiqué issued by the Ministry of Justice.

Paris, July 26 2003

Dominique Perben, Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, is going to ask the Argentine authorities to extradite the former lieutenant commander, Alfredo Astiz, arrested on the order of Argentine courts following President Nestor Kirchner's repeal, on 25 July, of a decree prohibiting the extradition of persons who committed crimes during the military dictatorship.

Welcoming this arrest, he drew attention to the fact that, in 1990, the Paris Assize Court had sentenced Alfredo Astiz in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, and that since then France had been requesting his arrest./.