France is dropping arrest warrants for Rwandan officials for their alleged role in the attack that started the 1994 genocide and is placing them instead under judicial investigation, a legal source told Reuters on Thursday.

After an agreement with the Rwandan government, judges Marc Trevidic and Nathalie Poux have questioned six former army officials in Burundi in recent days over "complicity with murder in relation to a terrorist organisation" in a probe that could lead to charges.

The move is a compromise aimed at pushing forward the investigation into the origins of the genocide, as France tries to repair battered relations with the central African country.

All six deny any wrongdoing.

France and Rwanda broke off diplomatic ties in 2006 after the previous French judge on the case accused Kagame and nine aides of shooting down former President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane in April 1994, the catalyst for the massacre.

Arrest warrants were issued for the nine, but Rwanda rejected the charges and accused the administration of then-French President Francois Mitterrand of having trained and armed Hutu militias behind the killings.

After years of acrimony over the genocide- in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu authorities- France restored ties with Rwanda in late 2009 and President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to improve ties.
 

(Source: Reuters)