Rwandans protest over extradition

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Thousands of Rwandans have turned out to protest against the expected extradition of a presidential aide from Germany to France.

Rose Kabuye is accused of involvement in the killing of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, which is said to have sparked the 1994 genocide.

Rwanda has condemned her recent arrest and expelled the German ambassador.

The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma says protests in the capital, Kigali, appeared to be highly organised.

People were wearing T-shirts already printed with Rose Kabuye's name, he reported.

"We are going to demonstrate to show that all Rwandans are not happy at all for Rose Kabuye's extradition to France," said one protester, Maurice Musafiri.

"We don't trust the French justice system, so we are showing the world that it is an injustice made to African people by big countries."

'Bail option'

Ms Kabuye was detained in Frankfurt last week on a warrant issued by a French judge, and is expected to be extradited to France on Wednesday. <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/6196226.stm">Mystery of Habyarimana death</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm">How the genocide happened</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/africa/6181988.stm">Rwanda-France decades of tension</a>

Isabelle Montagne of the prosecutor's office in Paris said this was the first case of its kind, and that French officials had not yet decided how to proceed.

"[Ms Kabuye] will appear before an investigative judge who will explore her case, consider all options and decide whether charges should be pressed and if she should be kept in detention or whether she should be freed or granted bail," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

President Paul Kagame has condemned the arrest, saying Ms Kabuye held diplomatic immunity.

She is one of nine senior officials wanted over the shooting down of former President Habyarimana's plane.

All are members of the party which ousted the genocidal regime.

Correspondents say Ms Kabuye, a former guerrilla fighter with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now Rwanda's ruling party, has heroic status in Rwanda.

She has since served as an MP and mayor of the capital Kigali, and is one of President Kagame's closest aides.

The plane carrying Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down on 6 April 1994, as Mr Kagame's Tutsi rebels were advancing on Kigali.

The Hutu extremist government accused the RPF of the assassination. Within hours, militias set up roadblocks and started to systematically murder any Tutsis or moderate Hutus they could find.

The RPF has always accused the Hutu extremists of shooting down the plane, to provide a pretext for carrying out their genocidal plans.

Some 800,000 people were slaughtered in just 100 days before Mr Kagame's forces ousted the Hutu government.