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Rwandan living in France accused of genocide

Rwandan campaigners have filed a case against an exile living in the Paris region for crimes against humanity and genocide. They claim that 21 people now living in France are being investigated in connection with the 1994 massacres but say police are not moving fast enough.

Wikimedia Commons/Fanny Schertzer
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The Collectif des partis civils pour le Rwanda (CPCR), which works for civil cases to be brought against alleged genocide perpetrators, claims that Manassé Bigwenzare organised the killings of Tutsis when he was a judge in the Murambi area.

It claims that he was working with Jean-Baptiste Gatete, who sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity by the International Court for Rwanda in March.

The group also accuses Bigwenzare of participating in other massacres, including one at a hospital in Kiziguro, and of handing over two of his own friends to be killed in Kwangire.

The CPCR says that 21 people are being investigated for similar atrocities in France but wants faster action on some of them.

“Even if we know that judges and gendarmes are continuing their investigations, we think that some cases are sufficiently advanced for the accused to be taken in for questioning, opening the way for trials,” a statement on its site says.

"The genocide took place in 1994 and it's now more than 15 years afterwards and nobody has been tried in France," the group's French lawyer, Emmanuelle Debouverie, told RFI.

In Belgium at least six people have tried and sentenced for genocide and crimes against humanity, she says, adding, "I think it’s unbelievable in France we’re not able to prosecute anyone."

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