LONDON (AFP) — Rwandan President Paul Kagame threatened to charge French nationals over the 1994 genocide in his country if European courts did not reverse indictments on Rwandan officials, in an interview published Friday.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Kagame said an investigation by his government had gathered information on French nationals who were allegedly complicit with the Rwandan regime that presided over the genocide.
"There is no basis (for the charges in Spanish and French courts) ... They are indicting the people who actually stopped the genocide," Kagame told the business daily.
"Hopefully, our judges will also enjoy indicting some of them (French nationals) ... I don't rule that out unless these issues are sorted out."
A commission appointed by the Rwandan government handed over a 500-page report to Kagame in mid-November containing "witness reports of France's involvement in the 1994 genocide."
In November, Kigali severed diplomatic ties with France after French investigating magistrate Jean Louis Bruguiere accused Kagame of involvement in the death of the then president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu.
Habyarimana's plane was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994, sparking the genocide.
Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated government has in turn accused Paris of having equipped and trained the Hutus who eventually carried out the genocide, a charge that France has denied.
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