UN rights chief denounces Burundi for 'belligerent and defamatory' attack on inquiry team.

The top United Nations human rights official has called on Burundi to 'immediately retract' its threat to try and prosecute members of a UN Commission of Inquiry into rights abuses in the central African nation.

High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said on Thursday that comments made by Burundi's UN ambassador the previous day, were 'deeply regrettable in both tone and substance'.

'Burundi's belligerent and defamatory response to the findings of the Commission of Inquiry, and its repeated and wholly unsupported assertions that the commission was the puppet of mysterious external forces [...] are reprehensible,' said Ms. Bachelet, in a statement.

She also raised concern over the Burundian Government's 'complete failure' to address the very serious findings of the Commission of Inquiry.

On Wednesday, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Burundi to the UN, Albert Shingiro, attacked the independent international inquiry team, threatening to prosecute its members and compared Commission Chair, Doudou Diene, to a participant in the slave trade.

In the statement, Ms. Bachelet also called on Burundi, as a UN Member State, to 'show respect' to its institutions and the various bodies, laws and mechanisms it has established. Burundi is also a current member of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

'I urge the Government of Burundi to issue an immediate retraction of this inflammatory...