Two held over Rwandan massacres

Two Rwandan men wanted for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide have been arrested in France, police there have said.

Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Catholic priest, and Laurent
Bucyibaruta, an ex-civil servant, were held on warrants issued in
Tanzania last month.

The arrests have been welcomed by the Rwandan government, which has accused France of failing to cooperate fully.

More than 800,000 people died in 1994 massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Warrants for the arrests had been issued by the United
Nations-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based
in Tanzania.

'Murder and rape'

The two suspects will now face possible extradition to Tanzania.

Father Munyeshyaka was arrested at Gisors, to the west of Paris, and Mr Bucyibaruta near Troyes, east of the capital.

Father Munyeshyaka, 49, is accused of murdering three
young Tutsis in his Holy Family parish in the capital Kigali, news
agency AFP reported.

He is also accused of raping four young Tutsi women
between April and June 1994 and calling for the extremist Hutu
Interahamwe militia to commit rape.

Mr Bucyibaruta has been accused of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide" by the ICTR.

Rwanda broke off diplomatic ties with Paris last year in a row over a French inquiry related to the 1994 genocide.

The investigating judge said Rwandan President Paul
Kagame was complicit in the assassination of former President Juvenal
Habyarimana in 1994, which sparked off the killings.

Mr Kagame has always accused Hutu extremists of killing
Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu, in order to provide a pretext for the
genocide.

The killings ended 100 days later when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took power.

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