KIGALI, Wednesday Jan.11 (Xinhua) – A team of French experts investigating the attack on the plane of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, has accused his “own bobyguards” of perpetrating this terrorist attack where by the presidential Falcon 50 plane was shot down near Kigali international airport, in a final report issued in Kigali. The incident was considered to have triggered the genocide involving an estimated 800,000 Tutsis who had been immediately slaughtered in 1994.
“We must never cause confusion, because Habyarimana was killed by his own people,” the french magistrate Marc Trevidic , the Chairman of investigative team said on Tuesday. “Ballistic experts ‘indeed’ showed that the missile that shot down the right wing of the Presidential falcon was taken from the military camp in Kanombe, near Kigali airport,” the reports noted, arguing that the then influential members of the ” Hutu Power” in Rwanda are responsible for the death of Habyarimana.
Commenting on the French investigative report on Tuesday in Kigali, Rwandan Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama, declared that the findings of the inquiry showed that the assassination of Habyarimana was an act “premeditated and executed” by aides of the former Rwandan President. “This report is a compilation of testimonies that shed light on this attack against the presidential plane, and it was carried out by independent french investigators,” he added.
The attack “against former Rwandan president had nothing to do with the outbreak of the genocide,” said Karugarama. According to him, the testimonies collected by French investigators as part of the inquiry proved that ex-Rwandan Armed Forces had immediately surrounded the crash site, to “prevent” any other element from going to the place.
It is said that the plane was shot down as it prepared to land at Kigali International Airport, bringing back then President Habyarimana from negotiations over the Arusha peace accords. The crash served as an excuse for key perpetrators to execute a meticulously planned genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda. However, the French report also argued that “the attack had nothing to do with the genocide”.
Witnesses interviewed by French magistrates during the investigations included ex-members of Habyarimana’s presidential guard, officers of the ex-FAR, workers of Kigali International Airport and foreign experts who lived in Rwanda at the time of the attack, the source said. Commenting on the report the Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo said that findings constitute vindication for Rwanda’s long-held position on the circumstances surrounding events of April 1994.
“Rwandans welcome the findings that shed more light on a vital part of our country’s history. We continue undeterred and undistracted with the vital task of nation-building for generations to come,” she furthermore noted.
Prior to the coming to Rwanda by a team of French investigators, another French anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, in November 2006 issued international warrants of arrest against nine Rwandan personalities, as part of another investigation into the attack against on the aircraft of the former Rwandan President. (Xinhua)
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