Extradited senior Rwandan politician arrives in France

Nov 19, 2008, 14:54 GMT

Paris/Frankfurt - Rose Kabuye, a senior Rwandan politician, was extradited Wednesday from Germany to France, where she is wanted for questioning in connection with the 1994 assassination of former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.

The 47-year-old Kabuye, a top political aide to current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, arrived in Paris in early afternoon and was immediately transferred to the Palace of Justice, where she is expected to be placed under investigation for murder.

The shooting down of Habyarimana's aircraft, on May 6, 1994, sparked the subsequent killing by Hutus of up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, but ultimately led to Kagame, an ethnic Tutsi, taking over the country's leadership.

Since arresting Kabuye on November 9, Germany had been waiting for French police to pick her up. She was wanted under a European arrest warrant issued by the French.

Last week, Kabuye agreed to fast-track extradition and German judges approved her being handed over to France.

A former guerrilla chief and mayor of the Rwandan capital Kigali, she is currently Kagame's chief of protocol.

Rwanda responded to her arrest by expelling the German ambassador to Kigali and recalling its own ambassador from Berlin for consultations. Thousands of Rwandans demonstrated outside the German embassy in Kigali.

Germany gave Kabuye advance warning she would be arrested if she came to Frankfurt independently of a presidential delegation.

A French magistrate suspects Kabuye and eight other Kagame staff of complicity in Habyarimana's death. Kabuye is the first to be arrested.

The French government has made little comment on the matter. But on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said that Paris was interested in restoring normal diplomatic ties with the Rwandan government, which were cut by Kagame in 2007.