20-05-2025
France drops genocide probe against widow of former Rwandan president Habyarimana
French judicial authorities have closed the investigation against the widow of Rwanda's former president Juvenal Habyarimana into claims she played a role in the country's 1994 genocide, without pressing any charges against her, several sources close to the case told French news agency AFP.
Agathe Habyarimana, 82, who has been living in France since 1998 and whose extradition has been repeatedly requested by Kigali, will not face trial by a French court at this stage, the sources said, asking not to be named.
The former first lady fled Rwanda with French help just days after her husband's plane was shot down in April 1994, triggering the genocide which saw around 800,000 people slaughtered in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities.
Remembering Rwanda's genocide
The investigation has been under way since 2008, when a French-based victims' association filed a legal complaint against Habyarimana who was questioned over suspicions that she was part of the Hutu inner circle of power that planned and orchestrated the killings of mainly ethnic Tutsis.
In the investigation she had the status of assisted witness, which in France's legal system is between being a witness and being charged.
The investigating magistrates in charge of the case said in a ruling delivered on Friday that "at this stage, there is no serious and consistent evidence that she could have been an accomplice in an act of genocide" or could have "participated in an agreement to commit genocide".
(AFP)
Read more on RFI EnglishRead also:Life sentence upheld for ex-gendarme Philippe Manier in Rwandan genocide caseRwanda marks 30 years since France's contested mission to stem 1994 genocideMacron acknowledges France's 'failure to heed warnings' of looming massacres in Rwanda
