Rwandan aide to be sent to France

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A senior aide to Rwandan President Paul Kagame is to be transferred from detention in Germany to French custody next week, officials say.

Rose Kabuye was arrested in Germany on Sunday accused of involvement in the destruction of a plane carrying former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

His death in the incident is said to have triggered the 1994 genocide.

Ms Kabuye's arrest prompted criticism from Rwanda, which also expelled the German ambassador to Kigali.

President Paul Kagame condemned the arrest saying Ms Kabuye held diplomatic immunity.

Her lawyer told AFP news agency "Everything is in order. She will be transferred to Paris on Wednesday."

Guerrilla history

Ms Kabuye was detained in Frankfurt on a warrant issued by a French judge.

She is one of nine senior officials wanted over the shooting down of former President Habyarimana's plane. <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/6196226.stm">Mystery of Habyarimana death</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm">How the genocide happened</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/6181988.stm">Rwanda-France decades of tension</a>

All are members of the party which ousted the genocidal regime.

Correspondents say Ms Kabuye, a former guerrilla fighter with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now Rwanda's ruling party, has heroic status in Rwanda.

She has since served as an MP and mayor of the capital Kigali, and is one of President Kagame's closest aides.

The plane carrying Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down on 6 April 1994, as Mr Kagame's Tutsi rebels were advancing on Kigali.

The Hutu extremist government accused the RPF of the assassination. Within hours, militias set up roadblocks and started to systematically murder any Tutsis or moderate Hutus they could find.

The RPF has always accused the Hutu extremists of shooting down the plane, to provide a pretext for carrying out their genocidal plans.

Some 800,000 people were slaughtered in just 100 days before Mr Kagame's forces ousted the Hutu government.