{{Rwanda government officials have been cleared by an inquiry that has been for the past 16 years investigating the cause of the Falcon 50 plane crash in which former President Habyarimana was killed.}}
The probe led by French Judge Marc Travidic and Nathalie Poux discredited previous findings by Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who had accused current Rwanda government officials of shooting down the plane.
The Plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi leader crashed while about to land at Kigali International Airport on April 6, 1994.
According to a statement by Lef Forster and Bernard Maingain, lawyers representing government on the case, said, “This decision is a very important step for the progress of the case.”
Judges Travidic and Nathalie Poux will give their final decision in three months, but it is not expected to change much.
Lawyers representing government noted;“Judge Bruguière handled the proceedings and accused the Rwanda Patriotic Front of being behind the attack. The defence for the Rwandan individuals implicated by the judge was able to demonstrate that the facts and evidence on which judge Bruguière had relied were erroneous, false and forged”.
Bruguière began his investigation on March 27, 1998, following a complaint submitted on August 31, 1997, by the daughter of the co-pilot of Habyarimana’s plane, Jean-Pierre Minaberry.
Justice minister Johnston Busingye welcomed the findings.
“We have maintained from the onset that the truth will prevail. One of the greatest manipulations and perversions of French justice is inevitably crashing to its end,” Busingye said.
“Trevedic’s closure decision demonstrates that Bruguiere’s case was a deliberate travesty on both facts and evidence.”
Forster and Maingan said all of the direct testimonies given to Bruguière were false and the indirect testimonies were made by opponents of the Rwandan government and contributed nothing to the progress of the investigation.
“An independent examination conducted on site led to the conclusion that the hypothesis of the Masaka shooting zone evoked by the principal accusers was incorrect, and that the shooting zone was rather to be found at camp Kanombe or its immediate vicinity, a shooting zone which was inaccessible to RPF forces at the time, a fact recently confirmed by General Roméo Dallaire,” they said.
“The investigation should have focused on the Hutu extremists’ camp, which the Bruguière investigation failed to do.”
{Additional reporting Newtimes}
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