26.11.09 - RWANDA/FRANCE - GENOCIDE SUSPECT TRANSFERRED FROM LA REUNION TO PARIS

Arusha, November 26, 2009 (FH) - Captain Pascal Simbikangwa, a former Rwandan officer indicted for genocide, was transferred on November 20 from a jail on the French island La Réunion, situated off the Mozambican coast in the Indian Ocean, to a prison in Paris.

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Charged with genocide on April 16 in Mayotte Island, another French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean, Simbikangwa is confined to a wheel chair. He was transferred to La Réunion to be taken care of in a penitentiary medical unit.

According to Mayotte's Appeals Court Prosecutor, Marc Brisset-Foucault, quoted by AFP, Simbikangwa has been sent on to the French capital at the request of the Parisian investigation judges who are in charge of his case.

Born in 1959, Pascal Simbikangwa, a former gendarme, was arrested in October 2008 for trafficking forged identity papers. He was subsequently identified as one the Rwandan fugitives wanted by Interpol for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide.

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