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| France issues Rwanda warrants | France issues Rwanda warrants |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| A French judge has issued international arrest warrants for nine close aides of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. | A French judge has issued international arrest warrants for nine close aides of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. |
| They are accused of involvement in the 1994 shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's former president, a death which sparked genocide. | They are accused of involvement in the 1994 shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's former president, a death which sparked genocide. |
| The judge has accused Mr Kagame of ordering the killing. He denies involvement and says the allegations are politically motivated. | The judge has accused Mr Kagame of ordering the killing. He denies involvement and says the allegations are politically motivated. |
| More than 800,000 people died in the 100-day massacres. | More than 800,000 people died in the 100-day massacres. |
| Under French law, Mr Kagame has immunity as head of state. | Under French law, Mr Kagame has immunity as head of state. |
| Street protest | |
| Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere is investigating the case because the crew of the plane were French and the families filed a case in France in 1989. | |
| The judge has said that only Mr Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) forces had missiles capable of downing President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane. | |
| Mr Kagame has denied this and has always accused France of having links to those who carried out the genocide. | |
| The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) brushed aside suggestions from Judge Bruguiere that Mr Kagame should stand trial there. | |
| "The prosecutor takes instructions from nobody in the world," said Everard O'Donnell, spokesman for the Arusha-based tribunal. | |
| "The crash did not create the genocide," he said. | |
| Mr Kagame has described that suggestions he was behind the assassination of the former president as scandalous. | |
| "That some judge in France whose name I cannot even pronounce has something to say about Rwanda - trying a president and some government officials - that's rubbish," Mr Kagame said on Wednesday. | |
| In the Rwandan capital, Kigali on Thursday some 10,000 people took to the streets in a government-organised protest at France's alleged complicity in the genocide. | |
| Many carried placard reading "France genocidaire" and "France get out of Rwanda". |