French genocide probe

2009-11-23 22:20

Paris -Two French investigating judges were in Rwanda on Monday to follow leads in their probe of Rwandan genocide suspects arrested in France, in the first such visit in nearly three years, officials said.

Fabienne Pous and Michele Ganascia arrived in Kigali on Saturday for a week-long mission, a first since France and Rwanda broke off diplomatic relations in 1996.

France is investigating a dozen cases of Rwandans suspected of involvement in genocide or crimes against humanity in the 1994 atrocities in which more than 800 000 people were killed, mostly ethnic Tutsis.

But only two people have been formally charged in the case, Kigali priest Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta, a former state official in Gikongoro, southern Rwanda.

President's widow

Among those under investigation in France is Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of president Juvenal Habyarimana, who was killed in April 1994 when his plane was shot down, opening a period of violence that would escalate to genocide.

A doctor working in a hospital in northern France, Eugene Rwamycio, was suspended from his post last month and is under investigation for taking part in massacres in the southern city of Butare.

Rwanda broke off relations with France after an investigating judge issued arrest warrants for nine Rwandans suspected of plotting the downing of Habyarimana's plane.

Kigali has repeatedly accused France of having evacuated or facilitated the departure from Rwanda of high-ranking figures implicated in the genocide.

An investigating judge from the Paris military tribunal, Brigitte Reynaud, travelled to Kigali in November 2005 to hear six plaintiffs who accused the French army of complicity in genocide.

- AFP