{"id":45287,"date":"2022-02-15T15:31:54","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T15:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/france-definitively-closes-investigation-on-habyarimana-s-plane-crash\/"},"modified":"2022-02-18T10:41:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T10:41:32","slug":"france-definitively-closes-investigation-on-habyarimana-s-plane-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/france-definitively-closes-investigation-on-habyarimana-s-plane-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"France definitively closes investigation on Habyarimana\u2019s plane crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The development announced on Tuesday 15th February 2020, complements the ruling of the Court of Appeal of Paris in July 2020. <\/p>\n

The ruling rejects investigation carried out by Judge Jean-Louis Brugui\u00e8re which led to the issuance of arrest warrant for top Rwandan officials who were on the front line of the Rwanda Patriotic Army that stopped the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi accused of shooting down the aircraft. <\/p>\n

The court backed findings of Judge Marc Tr\u00e9vidic who reported that the plane was shot down by missiles from Kanombe Military Barracks that was controlled by Hutu extremists that planned and executed the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. <\/p>\n

The ruling puts an end to a case that has been spoiling relations between France and Rwanda for more than 27 years. <\/p>\n

Agathe Kanziga, the wife of Habyarimana is among people who filed an appeal along with families whose relatives perished during the incident. <\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s interests during the court case, were represented by Lawyer L\u00e9on lef Forster and Bernard Maingain who have expressed optimism that the ruling will contribute to justice for more than one million victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. <\/p>\n

Former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana\u2019s private Falcon 50 jet was shot down on April 6, 1994, near Kigali International Airport, leaving Habyarimana dead. Cyprien Ntaryamira, the then President of Burundi, with everybody else on board also died in the plane crash.<\/p>\n

The plane shooting was followed by the 100-day Genocide that left more than a million Tutsis killed.<\/p>\n

In 1997, a family member to one French citizen filed a lawsuit to a court in Paris which saw the Judge Jean-Louis Brugui\u00e8re start an investigation the following year on who shot down the plane that was carrying President Habyarimana.<\/p>\n

Judge Brugui\u00e8re carried out the investigation without stepping on Rwanda\u2019s land and issued arrest warrants for nine Rwandan officials who were on the front line of the Rwanda Patriotic Army that stopped Genocide. <\/p>\n

Lawyer L\u00e9on lef Forster and Bernard Maingain have through a joint statement paid tribute to officials who were totally prosecuted in a defamatory manner. <\/p>\n

In 2010, Judges Nathalie Poux and Marc Trevedic came to Rwanda for investigation on Habyarimana\u2019s plane shooting, heard testimonies of witnesses in Rwanda and Burundi.<\/p>\n

The investigation came with a resolution that the plane had been shot down by Hutu extremists who opposed to Arusha accords that directed for the sharing of power among political parties in Rwanda including RPF with MRND, Habyarimana\u2019s single political party that operated in Rwanda since 1973 until 1990 when the RPF launched a liberation struggle putting Habyarimana on pressure to open the political space and accept the multiparty political system in Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\"Wreckages<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The French Court of Cassation has definitively closed the investigation on the shooting down of the plane of former Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana after rejecting the appeal filed by relatives of officials who perished during the incident.} <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-45287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45287"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=45287"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=45287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}