03.09.08 - RWANDA/ REPORT - REPORT ON ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT HABYARIMANA TO BE READY NOVEMBER

Arusha, 3 September 2008 (FH) - The Rwandan Commission charged with inquiring into the circumstances of the attack against the plane of the late President Juvenal Habyarimana on the evening of 6 April 1994 will hand in its report next November, reported Wednesday the pro-government newspaper New Times.

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The 12 people on board, including Habyarimana, his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as well as the French crew members, died in the attack.

The public will know towards the end of November the results of the investigation, revealed the Rwandan daily newspaper, quoting the President of Commission, Jean Mutsinzi.

Questioned on the progress of the work of his team, Mutsinzi, a former President of the Supreme Court, responded that it was premature to reveal anything to the press, adds New Times.

The Commission was created by the Rwandan government in October 2007.

The attack sparked the genocide in which nearly a million people, primarily ethnic Tutsis, were killed, according to Kigali.

At the end of 2006, an investigation by the French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere had alleged that the current President Paul Kagame as the main instigator of the attack, as he commanded the armed wing of the former rebellion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now in power. The former rebel leader has always denied any involvement in the assassination.

Judge Bruguiere had, then, issued arrest warrants against nine people close to Kagame and suggested that the United Nations prosecute the Head of Rwanda. Kigali had reacted by breaking diplomatic ties with Paris.

Consequently, at the beginning of last month, the Rwandan government made public the results of an investigation carried out by a commission "into the role of France in the genocide", which blamed around 30 civil and military officials in French, including former President Francois Mitterrand, who is deceased.

ER/PB/MM/SC

© Hirondelle News Agency