France to try Rwandan ex-officer for complicity in genocide

PARIS - A French court is to try a former lieutenant colonel in Rwanda's army on charges of complicity in genocide over allegedly delivering weapons used during the 1994 killings, a judicial source said Wednesday.

It will be the latest in a series of such trials in France linked to the killing between April and July 1994 of more than 800,000 Rwandans, mainly members of the Tutsi minority.

Cyprien Kayumba, a 71-year-old from the Hutu majority, headed a defence ministry department in charge of ordering and delivering weapons during the genocide.

Kayumba, who has lived in France since 1998, has always claimed he did not know the weapons he ordered would be used to kill Tutsis.

Judges on Wednesday ordered that Kayumba be tried at an undetermined date on the charges of complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity, the judicial source added.

They ordered him to hand over his passport and forbade him from leaving France.
Kayumba's lawyers told AFP the order for a trial was a shock for their client.

An investigating magistrate had in January ruled against any such court hearings after a probe that lasted more than two decades, but prosecutors in charge of alleged crimes against humanity appealed.

French courts, acting on the principle of "universal competence" to try the most serious crimes committed outside of its territory, have already convicted several Rwandans for their part in the 1994 genocide, one of the 20th century's worst atrocities.

A Paris court in February jailed a former hotel chauffeur for 14 years for transporting militia to the site of massacres during the killings.