Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, is set to appeal a French court decision that reopened an investigation into her alleged role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The case was revived after a court overturned an earlier 2025 ruling that had dismissed the investigation due to insufficient evidence.
Agathe Habyarimana, now 83, has been under investigation in France since 2008 over allegations of complicity in the genocide that claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus.Although she has never been formally charged, she currently holds the legal status of an “assisted witness,” a French legal classification that falls between being a witness and a formal suspect.Prosecutors allege that she played a major role within the powerful “Akazu” inner circle linked to Hutu extremists and accuse her of helping plan the massacres, including allegedly preparing lists of targeted victims.
Habyarimana has consistently denied all accusations, insisting she was not involved in politics and describing herself as a mother focused on raising her eight children.
Her lawyer criticised the decision to reopen the investigation, calling it unreasonable and arguing that there is no serious evidence linking her to the killings. He confirmed that the case would now be taken to France’s Supreme Court and possibly to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.The genocide erupted in 1994 after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, an event that triggered one of the deadliest mass killings in modern African history.
