15.01.10 - RWANDA/FRANCE - FORMER FRENCH EMBASSY EMPLOYEE ARRESTED FOR GENOCIDE

15 January 2010 By

Kigali, January 15, 2010 (FH) - A former driver of the French ambassador in Rwanda was arrested in Kigali on Monday 11, Radio Rwanda reported on Friday. Jean Rwabahizi just returned from France, where he had followed his employer after Kigali severed diplomatic ties with Paris in 2006.

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Relations between the two countries were restored in November 2009.

After his departure to France, Jean Rwabahizi had been convicted in absentia to 30 years in prison by a Gacaca court in Kigali. He was found guilty of complicity in massacres of Tutsis who had sought refuge in a Kigali church and at the French Embassy during the 1994 genocide.

France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties three years after relations had been broken off by Kigali in protest against the indictment by a Paris magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguière, of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, accused of ordering his predecessor's assassination.

The Rwandan government declared on Wednesday that it was ready to receive the letters of credence of the newly appointed French ambassador, Laurent Contini.

ER/GF