KIGALI, May 27 – The prosecutor\’s office in Rwanda on Thursday welcomed the arrest in France of Eugene Rwamucyo, a Rwandan doctor accused of participation in the 1994 Tutsi genocide.
Rwamucyo, who last month was dismissed from his hospital post in northern France, is wanted by Kigali for allegedly planning and carrying out atrocities in the Butare region of southern Rwanda.
The doctor, aged in his 50s, was on an Interpol watch list and wanted in Paris in connection with a complaint filed by the families of genocide victims for crimes against humanity. He was arrested Wednesday.
He is the object of a judicial inquiry in France and of an international arrest warrant issued by Kigali.
"We are pleased. We\’ve noticed in the past few days that France is committed to prosecuting alleged \’genocidaires\’ who have taken refuge there," Rwanda\’s Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said on national radio.
"France\’s attitude on the question (of genocide) has changed recently," he continued.
Rwamucyo\’s arrest comes nearly three months after French police detained Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of Rwanda\’s assassinated ex-president, and one of the alleged masterminds of the Tutsi genocide.
It also follows President Nicolas Sarkozy\’s landmark trip to Kigali in March during which he said France would do everything possible to ensure that "all those responsible for the genocide are found and are punished."
Sarkozy is to welcome Rwandan President Paul Kagame to Nice next week as one of the forty-odd African leaders invited to a France-Africa summit.
In an interview to AFP in October, Rwamucyo had denied the allegations of genocide and accused the Tutsi-led government in Kigali of waging a campaign against him.
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