French judicial authorities have closed an investigation against the widow of Rwanda’s former president Juvenal Habyarimana into claims she played a role in the country’s 1994 genocide, without pressing any charges against her, several sources close to the case told AFP.
Agathe Habyarimana, 82, who has been living in France since 1998 and whose extradition has been repeatedly requested by Kigali, will not face trial by a French court at this stage, added the sources, asking not to be named.
The former first lady fled Rwanda with French help just days after her husband’s plane was shot down in April 1994, triggering the genocide which saw around 800,000 people slaughtered in one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities.
The investigation has been under way since 2008, when a French-based victims’ association filed a legal complaint against Habyarimana who was questioned over suspicions that she was part of the Hutu inner circle of power that planned and orchestrated the killings of mainly ethnic Tutsis.
In the investigation she had the status of assisted witness, which in France’s legal system is between being a witness and being charged.
The investigating magistrates in charge of the case said in a ruling delivered on Friday that “at this stage, there is no serious and consistent evidence… that she could have been an accomplice in an act of genocide” or could have “participated in an agreement to commit genocide”.
“While the rumour is persistent, it cannot serve as proof in the absence of detailed and consistent evidence,” they added, emphasising that the “incriminating testimony appears contradictory, inconsistent, and even false”.
‘As quickly as possible’
The decision could mean that the case against her will be dismissed in the coming months and formally classified as dropped.
But French anti-terror prosecutors, who wanted her to be charged, in September already filed a case with the Paris court of appeal, with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
“Mrs Habyarimana is awaiting with great serenity the outcome of the proceedings,” said her lawyer Philippe Meilhac, welcoming the new ruling.
“It is time for the necessary dismissal of the case to be delivered as quickly as possible.”
Her case has added another element to tensions between Paris and the post-genocide authorities in Kigali under President Paul Kagame, which has accused France of being complicit in the killings and then sheltering the perpetrators.
President Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to Rwanda in 2021, recognised France’s “responsibilities” in the genocide and said only the survivors could grant “the gift of forgiveness”.
But he stopped short of an apology and Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebellion that ended the genocide, has long insisted on the need for a stronger statement.
A historical commission set up by Macron and led by historian Vincent Duclert also concluded in 2021 that there had been a “failure” on the part of France under former leader Francois Mitterrand, while adding that there was no evidence Paris was complicit in the killings.
