This is the direct consequence of the revelations, Friday, of the Mediapart investigation site. In an article, the media claimed to have found Aloys Ntiwiragabo, head of military intelligence during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, who is believed to be living near Orléans, in Loiret. The next day, this Saturday, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office announced that it had opened an investigation for “crimes against humanity”, targeting this 72-year-old former Rwandan official.
According to a judicial source, Aloys Ntiwiragabo was not the subject of any complaint in France and was wanted neither by Interpol, nor by French or Rwandan justice. In the past, he was nevertheless targeted by warrants of arrest, issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), but these have been lifted for several years, specifies the same source.
Suspected of having "developed a plan" for extermination
The “crimes against humanity” pole of the Paris court had sought to hear him as a witness in 2012 in an investigation and had requested the Rwandan authorities. The latter, according to the judicial source, had replied that Aloys Ntiwiragabo was a refugee in an African country.
In indictments dating from 1998, targeting people suspected of being among those responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, prosecutors from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) mentioned this official, while according to the UN, the genocide killed at least 800,000 people in three months in Rwanda.
Aloys Ntiwiragabo is mentioned as part of a group of eleven officials who, “from the end of 1990 until July 1994 […] agreed among themselves and with others to develop a plan with the intention of exterminate the civilian Tutsi population and eliminate members of the opposition and thus maintain power ”.
Another dignitary arrested in May
In another 2002 act targeting four of these eleven people, Aloys Ntiwiragabo is described as having “updated” “lists of people identified as the enemy” - the Tutsis - and “his accomplices” - members of the 'opposition - in order to "execute" them. Following the opening of this investigation, the French justice could want to hear this man who would live near Orleans, according to Mediapart.
On May 16, the arrest after a 25-year run of the “financier” of the Rwandan genocide, Félicien Kabuga, near Paris, had thrown a harsh light on the ancient presence and the late tracking of suspected genocidaires in France, who remained until 'at the end the ally of the last Hutu regime in Rwanda. The Paris Court of Appeal issued a favorable opinion in early June for his surrender to international justice, but Félicien Kabuga appealed to the Supreme Court. The hearing during which this case will be examined is scheduled for September 2.
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The same Paris Court of Appeal also confirmed in early July the dismissal of the investigation into the attack that triggered the 1994 genocide, a case that has poisoned Franco-Rwandan diplomatic relations for more than 20 years. Lawyers for the families of the victims have announced a cassation appeal.