Rwandan genocide witness questioned

French investigators have questioned a new witness who has implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame's forces in the 1994 killing of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, which sparked the genocide of Tutsis by members of the Hutu majority. The witness, who has been questioned twice but has not been named, says he helped load two surface-to-air missiles at the headquarters of Kagame's Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to be taken to Kigali, where they were allegedly used to take down Habyarimana's plane. Radio France Internationale reports that the witness claims two men – Franck Nziza and Eric Hakizimana – later told him they had fired the missiles. The French judiciary, which is acting on a legal complaint from French citizens killed aboard Habyarimana's plane, last year reopened its investigation into the assassination. Legalbrief reports that the genocide, which saw about 800 000 Rwandans killed, was planned by members of the core political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government.