23.09.10 - ICTR/FRANCE - ICTR PROTECTED WITNESS TO TESTIFY UNDER HER REAL IDENTITY IN FRANCE

Arusha, September 23, 2010 (FH) - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has rescinded protective measures enjoyed by one of its anonymous witnesses in order to help French judges to investigate the role of Agathe Habyarimana in the 1994 genocide.

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The witness is a woman who testified for the ICTR prosecution in March 2004 under the code name FAE.

She is now willing to testify under her real identity before the French Justice not only in the case of former First Lady, but also against Eugène Rwamucyo, a Rwandan doctor that France refused to extradite him last week.

On October 16, 2009, two French judges, Fabienne Pous and Michèle Ganascia, met the ICTR Chief Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow in order to get help in about ten investigation cases concerning Rwandan suspects implicated in the 1994 genocide.

According to a reliable source at the Tribunal, the French judges were notably looking for evidence in Agathe Habyarimana's case.   

Though Juvénal Habyarimana's widow has never been indicted by the ICTR, the Prosecution investigated her alleged role in the genocide as her name had been mentioned several times by witnesses.

ER/GF/FK

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