NGO seeks a probe into the deaths of two French officers slain in Rwanda genocide

The Survie (Survival) NGO that advocates for better relations between France and Africa, as well and two relatives, on Monday filed a complaint seeking a probe into the deaths of military police members Rene Maier and Alain Didot, as well as his wife Gilda Didot, in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

Exactly three decades on, "this complaint aims to establish responsibilities in the death of two French gendarmes and the wife of one of them in Kigali... in circumstances that remain mysterious," Survie said in a statement.

It claimed a French intelligence note that year suggested "the three French nationals could have been eliminated after they were witnesses" of the April 6, 1994 assassination of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.

The downing of his plane over Kigali triggered the genocide that killed more than 800,000 people between April and July 1994, mostly from the Tutsi minority but also moderate Hutus.

Didot, a radio technician, had arrived in 1992 to advise the Rwandan army and secure the French embassy's communications, according to the complaint.

Maier, an assistant technician, arrived in 1993.

The massacres of Tutsis started the day after Habyarimana's assassination.

A day after that, the Didot couple were reported dead on April 8, 1994.

UN peacekeepers from Belgium retrieved their bodies on April 12. They found the remains of Maier the next day.

The plaintiffs say the bodies were then repatriated via the Central African Republic, where death certificates were issued. But they say a total of eight inconsistent certificates exist for the three people.

No autopsy or investigation was ever conducted, they say.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame on Sunday said the international community had "failed" his country during the 1994 genocide as he paid tribute to victims 30 years after Hutu extremists tore apart the nation.

The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of Kagame, who led the rebel militia that ended the killings.

(AFP)