Rwandan president's widow held on genocide charges

The widow of the former Rwandan president whose death sparked the country’s 1994 massacres was arrested on genocide charges in France today.

Agathe Habyarimana was taken into custody at her home in Courcouronnes, south of Paris, on a Rwandan warrant.

She is the widow of former President Juvenal Habyarimana and was in France after being helped leave her country in by French forces.

France rejected her demand for political asylum, saying she was at the heart of the regime responsible for her country’s genocide. In October 2009, France’s Council of State refused her bid to appeal the decision.

Habyarimana’s arrest came just days after President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to Rwanda, said that those responsible for the killings should be found and punished.

Some 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were massacred in less than 100 days in a frenzy led by radical Hutus. The genocide followed a plane crash that killed the president. Two French pilots were flying.

The killings ended when Tutsi-led rebels under current President Paul Kagame defeated the Hutu extremists in July 1994.

A French advocacy group for Rwandan genocide survivors said France was a “haven” for those who helped perpetrate the genocide, and it has filed 16 lawsuits against people living here.

Mr Sarkozy’s trip to Rwanda was the first by a French head of state in 25 years. His visit was meant to reconcile the two countries, which restored diplomatic ties in November.

Relations had been broken over a French probe into the genocide that resulted in arrest warrants for nine people close to current President Paul Kagame. With the arrest of Habyarimana’s widow, seven warrants are still active.

Rwanda’s government and genocide survivor organisations often have accused France of training and arming the militias and former government troops who led the genocide.

In 1998, a French parliamentary panel absolved France of responsibility in the slaughter.

Mr Sarkozy has referred to “serious errors of judgment” and “a form of blindness when we didn’t see the genocidal aspect of the government of the president who was assassinated.”

In her bid for refugee status, Habyarimana had argued that she had no power and merely took care of her house, her children and her garden. Judges said her claim was not credible.

A commission ruled that though Habyarimana had no official government post, she had de facto authority in state affairs. It said she was “at the heart of the regime,” and “therefore was among the officials who planned the Rwandan genocide.”