The Spokesperson of Rwandan Government, Yolande Makolo, welcomes the decision of French Court of Cassation on February 15, that dismissed the appeal by the family of former President Juvenal Habyarimana over a long-running probe into the shooting down of his plane near Kigali International Airport on April 6, 1994.
Commenting on the development, Makolo tweeted, “Today’s decision in France’s Court of Cassation puts an end to one of the biggest cover-up stories in recent history. Judge Bruguière’s massive 24-year scam on the 6 April 1994 plane crash is over and done,”
Habyarimana’s family had petitioned France’s highest court in a last ditch attempt to revive a discredited probe by French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière in which he implicated former officers of the Rwanda Patriotic Army in the downing of the plane.
ruguière had begun his probe in March 1998 following a complaint submitted in by the daughter of the co-pilot of Habyarimana’s plane, Jean-Pierre Minaberry, who died in the crash.
The accused Rwandans include the senior security advisor to the President, Gen. James Kabarebe, Lt Gen Charles Kayonga, Maj Gen (rtd) Sam Kanyemera Kaka, Maj Gen (rtd) Jack Nziza, Lt Col (rtd) Rose Kanyange Kabuye, Lt Col Jacob Tumwine, and Franck Nziza.
Bruguière’s case had been dismissed on different occasions in the past, first by his succeeding judges, Marc Trévidic and Nathalie Poux in 2012, and then Jean-Marc Herbaut and Nathalie Poux in 2017 and in 2018.
