- A senior Rwanda official has been arrested in Germany yesterday on suspicion of participating in an assassination of previous president whose death triggered a genocide in 1994.
Ms Rose Kabuye, chief of protocol for current Rwandan president Paul Kagame who had accompanied him on a visit to Germany in April, but was not detained because she was under diplomatic immunity, was sought for questioning by a French judge about what sparked her country's infamous genocide.
Ms Kabuye is under investigation for allegedly being involved in downing of a plane 14 years ago carrying Rwanda's former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana as Mr Kagame's Tutsi rebels were advancing on Kigali, Rwanda's capital.
Country's media reports said German Federal Police did not say if Ms Kabuye was on personal business or where she was flying from or what her destination was when she was arrested.
Ms Kabuye's lawyer Leon-Lef Forster said Ms Kabuye had agreed to be extradited to France, where she was expected to arrive in a few days to be questioned about the attack on plane of former President.
"She is ready to speak to judges, especially since, to our knowledge, there isn't much in the dossier," lawyer Lef Forster said.
A former deputy, Ms Kabuye is first Rwandan to be arrested out of nine warrants issued by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere in 2006 against close Mr Kagame aides whom he suspected of being behind Habyarimana's death.
Rwanda Information Minister Louise Mushikiwabo condemned Kabuye's arrest as improper. "This is a misuse of international jurisdiction," Minister said adding that Kigali would offer an official reaction.
Rwanda's genocide began hours after plane was mysteriously shot down as it approached the capital, Kigali, on 6 April, 1994.
The 100-day slaughter, in which more than 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate members of Hutu majority were killed by Hutu extremists, ended after rebels ousted Hutu government that orchestrated the killings.
In November 2006, then-French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued nine arrest warrants for leading Rwandan figures who are close to current president Kagame, and who French authorities suspect of involvement in plane attack.
Rwanda and France have long traded and refuted accusations of involvement in the genocide. Kigali broke off ties with Paris following French arrest warrants.
In August, Rwandan government issued a 500-page report accusing 13 French politicians of playing a role in the massacres, including then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, and former prime minister Edouard Balladur.
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