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[img]/Images/national law project/Habyarimana_Agathe.jpg[/img]
Country of proceedings: France
Context of crimes: Rwanda
Date: 2007 - present
Keywords: Genocide (complicity), crimes against humanity, refugee status (exclusion clauses)
Court Documents (in French)
13-02-2007 - SCRC Complaint
15-02-2007 - Décision de la Commission des recours des réfugiés
16-10-2009 - Décision du Conseil d'État
Presentation of the case
Agathe Habyarimana (née Agathe Kanzigas) was born in 1942 in the town of Gishyita, Rwanda. The widow of former President of the Republic of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, she was frequently regarded as one of the powers behind his Presidency as part of the "Akazu" inner circle. On 9 April 1994, following Habyarimana's assassination and the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, she was airlifted to France where she still resides.
Agathe Habyarimana allegedly participated in planning, organising and directing the genocide in Rwanda. She played an important role in the establishment of “Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines” and the newspaper “Kangura”, propaganda organs of the genocide. She also assisted the preparation of Bagogwe massacres in early 1991. These events were a prelude to the 1994 genocide.
In January 2004, after 13 years in France, she filed a request for refugee status. The French Office of Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) and the Appeals Commission for Refugees (CRR) specified in January 2007 and February 2007 respectively that she was certainly involved "as instigator or accomplice" in "the crime of genocide”. This statement had a negative impact on her request and she was found ineligible for refugee status under the Geneva Convention on Refugees on 15 February 2007.
A complaint related to crimes committed in Rwanda has been filed against Agathe Habyarimana by the “collectif des parties civiles pour le Rwanda” (SCRC), a victims association. In its complaint, the SCRC considered Agathe Habyarimana involved in planning, organising and directing the genocide. Following this complaint, a judicial investigation against “X” was open on the grounds of "complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity" in Evry (France) and was later transferred to Paris.
The complaint filed by the SCRC also refers to the decision of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), which excluded Agathe Habyarimana from asylum status on the grounds of "serious suspicion of complicity in crimes against humanity". The process is ongoing, but on 16 October 2009 the French Conseil d'État rejected Agathe Habyarimana's appeal against the decision not to grant her asylum.
Related case
Wenceslas Munyeshyaka
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with Liberty & justice for some....