France's top antiterrorism judge recommended on Monday that Rwandan President Paul Kagame be tried for war crimes for his alleged involvement in the downing of his predecessor's plane, an act which sparked the 1994 genocide.
The judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, said Kagame should face prosecution before the international war crimes court in Tanzania because he is suspected of involvement in the death of then Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania is currently hearing the case of several former high-ranking Rwandan army officers accused of genocide during the 100 days of carnage that followed.
The court last month rejected a request to take into account an earlier account from Bruguiere into the killing of Habyarimana which reportedly named Kagame as the main decision-maker behind the April 6, 1994 attack in which Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed.
Habyarimana's aircraft was shot down and his death sparked off the genocide in which some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were butchered.
Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira and a four-man French crew were also killed in the crash.
Kagame, who headed the Tutsi rebel force that took power in Kigali in July 1994, ending the genocide, has always denied any involvement in the attack on the aircraft carrying Habyarimana.
Those already being tried by the Tanzania-based ICTR have attempted to deflect blame for the genocide onto Habyarimana's killers.
But the court has disagreed, ruling that the charges facing the accused are not based on any alleged responsibility or involvement in Habyarimana's death.
French courts also called on Monday for international arrest warrants to be served against nine of Kagame's aides in relation to the plane attack, including James Kabarebe, a senior officer in the Rwandan army.
Before the allegations of Kagame's involvement, which surfaced in unofficial UN documents, it was widely assumed that Habyarimana was killed by Hutu extremists in his own entourage, who were opposed to power-sharing arrangements with Kagame's mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
A confidential memorandum written by an investigator for the UN in 1997 and implicating Kagame is under seal at the ICTR, which has refused to give a copy to Bruguiere.
The ICTR chief prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar Jallow of Gambia, has said that the attack against Habyarimana is not part of his mandate.
Relations between the French and Rwandan governments have been dominated by mutual distrust in recent years following suspicions that France gave critical backing to Habyarimana.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese