Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, 65, had been living in France and was detained by French police in the southern town of Carcassonne last month.

Although a Paris appeals court approved his handover to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, he will not be transferred immediately as his lawyers have decided to appeal against the decision.

Ntawukuriryayo was sub-prefect of the town of Gisagara in the southern Rwandan province of Butare during the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. He is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide and inciting the public to commit genocide.

According to the 2005 tribunal indictment, Ntawukuriryayo played a central role in a massacre at Kabuye hill near Gisagara in which thousands of Tutsi refugees were rounded up and ordered to go to a hill where they were told they would be safe.

Ntawukuriryayo organised soldiers and militias to go to the site to kill them, it says.

"As a result of his actions, Dominique Ntawukuriryayo was responsible for the death of as many as 25,000 Tutsi refugees who were killed at Kabuye hill during the period of 21st to 25th of April 1994," the indictment said.