The highest jurisdiction of the French judiciary had examined on 18 January an appeal filed by the families of victims of the attack, after the confirmation of the abandonment of the prosecution in this case by the Court of Appeal of Appeal of Paris in 2020.
Le Monde with AFP
This is the end of more than twenty years of instruction. The Court of Cassation validated, Tuesday, February 15, the non-place ordered in 2018 in the French survey on the attack which triggered the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
The highest jurisdiction of the French judiciary had examined on 18 January an appeal filed by the families of victims of the attack, after the confirmation of the abandonment of the prosecution in this case by the Court of Appeal of Appeal of Paris in 2020. In this case, several members of the entourage of the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, were continued.
The decision of Tuesday is not without consequences on the relations between Paris and Kigali. The survey was a real thorn in the foot of Franco-Rwandan relations for more than twenty years, several people around the current Rwandan President Paul Kagame had been indicted during the investigation.
“Record of crucial importance”
On 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying the Rwandan president of the Juvenal Habyarimana era, a Hutu, and the Cyprian Burundian President Ntaryamira had been shot in the landing phase to Kigali by at least one missile. This event was the starting point of the genocide which made more than 800,000 dead, according to the UN, mainly in the Tutsi minority.
The French investigators, seized in 1998 following the complaint of the crew families, of French nationality, have long preferred the responsibility of the Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame. Then they moved for a time – without further succeeding – towards the involvement of Hutu extremists, anxious to get rid of a too moderate president in their eyes.
On December 21, 2018, the investigating judges had finally decided to abandon the prosecutions against nine or former members of the surroundings of Paul Kagame. “In the absence of indisputable material elements”, the Prosecution was based on “largely contradictory or unverifiable” testimonies, did they estimate.
The magistrates had also emphasized the “deleterious climate” of the enamelled murderer, disappearance of witnesses and manipulations, and ordered a non-place. This decision was confirmed in July 2020 by the Chamber of Instruction of the Paris Court of Appeal.
In particular the Court of Cassation, the civil parties have argued that the Chamber of Investigation did not distinguish between the indicned persons, nor clarified why there were no charges. sufficient against each of them, according to a source close to the file. The Advocate General had advocated to reject the appeal.
“I’m waiting for the Court of Cassation does not store this file to the forgotten of history,” said Philippe Meilhac, lawyer of Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of former Rwandan president, confident having “still hope “. “It’s still a record that is crucial for the civil parties and history of Rwanda, and it has the impression that it is sacrificed on the altar of diplomatic relations, he observed. It would be fairly inconceivable that there is no trial after so many years of procedures. “