French court orders trial for Rwanda genocide suspect

A Paris appeals court on Thursday confirmed a trial for a former Rwanda government official living in France since 1997 who is suspected of participating in the 1994 massacre of over 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis.

Laurent Bucyibaruta faces charges of genocide, complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity after investigating judges ordered a trial in December 2018.

His lawyer, Ghislain Mabonga Monga, said that Bucyibaruta would appeal the decision to France's supreme court.

Bucyibaruta was a state official in Gikongoro, southern Rwanda, where he was accused of complicity in widespread summary executions between April and January 1994.

He later fled the country and eventually arrived in France, whose relations with Rwanda have been strained by claims French officials helped high-ranking genocide suspects escape.

Relatives of genocide victims and rights groups filed a French complaint against him in 2000, but only a handful of cases involving Rwandan suspects have gone to trial.

Two trials have led to three convictions, while a February trial for Claude Muhayimana, a former hotel driver accused of transporting Hutu militiamen to sites where massacres were carried out, has been delayed because witnesses cannot travel to France because of coronavirus restrictions.

In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a panel to shed light on France's role during the killings to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide, amid persistent claims by many Rwandans that France supported the Hutu forces behind the killings.

The decision was seen as a ground-breaking effort to confront France's troubled history in Africa.