One day before President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans for a momentous visit to Rwanda, police turned up at a hospital in sleepy south western France and arrested a Rwandan doctor for genocide.

Sostene Munyemana had been working for nine years as a gynecologist at Saint-Cyr hospital in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, a town better known for its plum orchards and vineyards than as a refuge for genocide suspects.
 

Since 2006, the father of three had been on an Interpol watch list of men sought by Rwanda for war crimes, but French authorities had made no move until last month, when Paris and Kigali began enjoying a diplomatic thaw.
 

"I'm not at all surprised that this is happening now," said Munyemana, who awaits a court decision in June on whether he will be extradited to Rwanda.
 

"Diplomatic relations have been restored between the two countries and so the circumstances were favourable to this," he told AFP in a phone interview.
 

Dubbed the Butcher of Tumba by one rights group, Munyemana is accused of taking part in the 1994 killings of ethnic Tutsis in Butare, Rwanda's second city, where he also worked as a doctor at the university hospital.
 

A group called African Rights said Munyemana was seen carrying a crowbar as he led angry mobs in attacks on Tutsi homes and rounded up victims to be locked up in an office where he would return at night to kill them.

Charges rejected
The 45 year old Hutu rejects the charges and maintains he is the target of false accusations from the London-based pressure group, which he claims is close to the Kigali government.
 

"There were killings just about everywhere," he recalled of the atrocities in Butare. "We tried to resist and save our own skins, but I never took part in anything. I have witnesses to prove it."

Munyemana's arrest was seen as a shift in France's policy on Rwanda.
 

For years, activist groups have been campaigning to force the "genocidaires" to answer charges related to the mass killing of 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, between April and July 1994.

French authorities are investigating more than a dozen cases involving Rwandan genocide suspects living in France, such as that of Munyemana and the more prominent Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the late president.
 

But only three people have been formally charged including a Kigali priest accused of murdering victims who sought refuge in a church and a governor who allegedly organised the massacre of tens of thousands at a school.
 

Sarkozy will be the first French president to visit Rwanda since the genocide when he arrives Thursday in Kigali, where anti-French sentiment runs high.

France accused
The Tutsi-led Rwandan government has long accused France of siding with the former Hutu regime and providing sanctuary for alleged mass killers now enjoying comfortable lives in French towns.
 

Agathe Habyarimana, who wielded much power in Kigali during her late husband’s reign, was airlifted out of Rwanda by French troops in the days following her husband's assassination and now lives in a Paris suburb.
 

She was denied asylum in a final appeal in October and could find herself before a French court to answer charges that she was one of the genocide’s masterminds. Habyarimana denies the allegations.
 

Munyemama was released under judicial supervision and judges earlier this month asked for additional information from Rwanda on the case before making a decision on whether to extradite him.
 

Justice for Rwandans, he said, is an elusive goal.
 

"In Rwanda, everyone knows at least one killer," he said.

France last month announced plans to set up a new court with special powers to try cases of genocide and crimes against humanity, with legislation on the panel expected later this year.
 

"There had been absolute inertia until now," said Alain Gauthier, president of the CPCR group of civil plaintiffs who have been seeking to bring genocide suspects to justice.

Neighbouring Belgium meanwhile has already held four genocide trials in which two nuns; a banker and others have been sent behind bars.
 

Source: AFP