The July 20th arrest of Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta confirmed that France is indeed reopening certain forgotten Rwandan judicial files, albeit somewhat reluctantly. It has been pushed to do so in part by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which has issued warrants for the arrest of three Rwandans living in France and accused of having participated in the 1994 genocide. Their files should be transferred from Arusha to Paris shortly. Interpol set the ball rolling at the end of June, when it provoked the first arrest of a Rwandan suspect attempting to enter the United States with a French passport. Kigali is asking for his extradition. Observant customs officers at the Philadelphia Internatonal Airport made Isaac Kamali the first in a recent series of Rwandan genocide suspects to be imprisoned in France. According to Reuters, he is accused in Rwanda of having participated in a series of killings, pillages, and property destruction of Tutsis not far from Gitarama, in southern Rwanda. Kamali was granted French citizenship in 2002. The Rwandan minister of foreign affairs, interviewed by the IJT, stated that he would like to see Kamali extradited to Rwanda, despite the rupture in diplomatic relations with Paris, in November 2006. Charles Murigande declares, "France cannot offer indefinite protection to perpetrators of genocide, including Kamali."

An agreement on transfer of cases was reached in July 2006 between the ICTR and France. Three indictments, approved by the judges in Arusha in 2005, were made public last April and June, along with their corresponding arrest warrants, regarding Rwandans living in France, including two who are also facing proceedings in French courts. The Arusha prosecutor has asked that their files be transferred to Paris, and on July 11 the ICTR named judges to rule on these transfers, leaving no doubt in the minds of the cases' protagonists. As of now, the ICTR has only transferred one case, to the Netherlands, in the context of its completion strategy [IJT-67].

Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka's case is the most well known of ICTR cases expected in Paris. He has been accused in Arusha of genocide and acts constituent of crimes against humanity (rape, extermination, and murder). His case has dragged on in France since a judicial investigation was opened in 1995, to such an extent that Paris was condemned for its slowness by the European Court of Human Rights in 2004. The second, Laurent Bucyibaruta, was indicted in 2000 following a complaint filed against him and three other Rwandans residing in France by the FIDH. The former prefect of Gikongoro was freed in 2000, and his case - as did Munyeshaka's - came before a Paris court, after a decision by the a superior court to group the Rwandan cases together "in the interest of administering justice well." The third, Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, has been accused of acts committed while he was a sub-prefect in the Butare region. As far as this journal has been able to find out, he has no cases underway or pending in the French courts.

No one, it seems, has been able to specify exactly how many Rwandan cases are currently open in France. The French prosecutor's office has stated that "a report is being drawn up" on the subject. For its part, the FDIH has counted at least seven cases to come under judicial investigation since 1995. But many others have never been looked into, according to several experts. In particular, one of them has expressed surprise that the ICTR and Paris are only involved in three cases, of which only Bucyibaruta's would make a firm criminal case "since there are a half dozen confirmed killers in France for whom exemplary trials could be held."

Via a spokesperson, the Ministry of Justice "denies that there is any lack of will to try these cases in France. Magistrates are leading judicial inquests. Justice is following its course - and it is independent." To Murigande, nevertheless, "France has done nothing to bring these people to justice, maybe for fear of publicly revealing the support France provided them - intellectual, political, diplomatic, financial, etc." The now well-established diplomatic and judicial ping pong match between Paris and Kigali continues.