afrol News, 12 January - After spending 13 years of painstaking efforts to secure asylum in France, the wife of the assassinated Rwana President now has had her asylum application turned down. French refugee officials discovered that Ms Agathe Kanziga Habyrimana had played a key role in the 1994 genocide in which about a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in Rwanda.

The 60-year-old woman, accused of inciting the public to commit genocide, said she would fight her case before a special refugee commission in France on 25 January.

Her late husband, President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed alongside six other people when their plane was shot down. A French judge is accusing current President Paul Kagame of having stood behind the killing of President Habyarimana.

Kigali officials hailed the move as a good decision by France since investigations into genocide finally were taking place in France. "It is a positive development because this is the first time France has taken a good decision since the genocide," Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told the press.

French officials are yet to state their next line of action against Ms Habyarimana but the Justice Minister said she and thousand other genocide suspects should be handed over immediately to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for prosecution. "Kanziga is a category one genocide suspect, and France should make a step further and hand her to ICTR for justice."

France itself has been accused of aiding and actively taken part in the Rwandan genocide because of its strong relations with the Habyarimana regime. By now, the relations between france and Rwanda have become sour after a French Magistrate Jean Louis Bruguiere asked for the arrest President Kagame and nine senior officials for their alleged involvement of shooting down the plane of Habyarimana in 1994.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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