'Concocted evidence' shock in French case against Rwanda official

A senior Rwandan official was flown to France today to face accusations of complicity in assassination and genocide - just as the case against her appeared to fall apart at the seams.

Tens of thousands of Rwandans demonstrated in Kigali against the arrest in Germany 10 days ago of Rose Kabuye, 47, a senior aide to the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame.

Ms Kabuye is alleged by a French investigating judge to have played a part in the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994 which led directly to a 100-day genocidal civil war in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

Formal accusations of murder brought in 2006 by the French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière against nine of President Kagame's supporters, including Ms Kabuye, have caused a serious rift in relations between Paris and Kigali. The Rwandan leaders accuse France of trumping up a case against them to disguise the responsibility of the then French government in arming and assisting the Hutu-dominated authorities and armed forces who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in 1994.

Evidence for an active French role in the genocide is weak to non-existent. So, it emerged yesterday, was the French judge's evidence that the anti-Tutsi slaughter was deliberately provoked by the Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame, now Rwanda's president.

Judge Bruguiere's case for issuing international arrest warrants for the Rwandan leaders rests largely on statements made by a dissident Rwandan - and Tutsi - army officer who is exiled in Norway. This officer, Abdul Ruziba, told the French newspaper Libération that he had 'concocted' his evidence to the French judge.

President Kagame - then head of a Tutsi rebel army - is accused by the French judge of organising the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane as it approached Kigali airport in April 1994. The fact that the pilots of the aircraft were French gives Paris the right to claim jurisdiction in a murder investigation. No arrest warrant has been issued for President Kagame himself because he has immunity as head of state.

The French judge alleges that Mr Kagame and his followers assassinated the moderate Hutu president, knowing that this would lead to a mass slaughter of their own Tutsi people. This would, in turn, give the Tutsi rebels, mostly based in Uganda, an excuse to invade the country - as they did - and install Mr Kagame at the head of a Tutsi regime.

The dissident Tutsi officer, Mr Ruzibia, said yesterday that his evidence implicating President Kagame, Rose Kabuye and the others was a 'concoction? a complete invention, pure and simple'.

Mr Ruzibia said in a sworn statement in 2003 that he was part of a Commando Network which had been ordered to shoot down the plane. He named Ms Kabuye as someone who had given shelter to the commando unit.

In his interview with Liberation, the dissident officer fails to explain why he gave this story - or why he is retracting it now. He says that he made up the account, based on rumours that circulated at the time.

In an editorial, Liberation said that it was time for the French authorities to abandon the 'ignoble' allegation that the Tutsis had been the 'artisans of the genocide against them'.

The French government of President Francois Mitterrand had close military and political relations with the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government up to the 1994 civil war. The French army intervened during the slaughter, mostly to protect European civilians and fleeing members of the defeated Hutu government and army.

President Kagame has accused France of helping to plan the genocide. A French parliamentary investigation in 1997 was severely critical of France's role in Rwanda but found no evidence that Paris knew of plans to slaughter Tutsis.

President Kagame severed relations with France after he was named as a suspect in 2006 . The nations have since restored ties.