France Rules On Appeal To Prosecute Rwandan President's Killing

France rules on appeal to prosecute Rwandan president's killing

Paris, July 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Jul, 2020 ) :A French court will decide Friday whether to reopen an investigation into the assassination 26 years ago of Rwanda's president in a plane downing that triggered the country's 100-day genocide.

The appeals court in Paris has been asked to revisit a 2018 decision to throw out the probe against nine members and former members of incumbent President Paul Kagame's entourage in a case that has poisoned relations between the two countries.

A plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana, from Rwanda's Hutu majority, was shot down in Kigali on April 6, 1994, unleashing a killing spree that would leave 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, dead.

The plane was struck by at least one missile as it came in to land at Kigali, also killing Burundi's president Cyprien Ntaryamira, another Hutu, on board.

A probe was opened in France in 1998 after a complaint by families of the French plane crew.