Rwandan aide arrives in France after extradition

PARIS (Reuters) - A Rwandan official extradited from Germany over the 1994 killing of a Rwandan president which was blamed for triggering genocide arrived in Paris on Wednesday and was put under investigation by magistrates, her lawyers said.

German authorities have held Rose Kabuye, a senior aide to current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, since arresting her on November 9 at Frankfurt airport under international warrants issued by France for her and eight other Kagame associates.

Kabuye's Belgian lawyer Bernard Maingain said she had been escorted on a flight from Frankfurt by French police officers and then taken to be interviewed by judges investigating the 1994 plane crash that killed then-President Juvenal Habyarimana.

That event is widely seen as triggering the start of the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

A decision on whether Kabuye will be held in detention is expected later on Wednesday. Prosecutors do not want her to be held but are asking that she be placed under a probation order.

Earlier, thousands of demonstrators in Kigali chanted "Our Rose, Our Rose" and waved Rwandan flags as they mounted a demonstration of support. Some waved placards reading: "Rose is innocent and she is ready to prove it."

The peaceful protest stopped outside the German Embassy, where a stage was set up and a live band sang "Get up, Stand up," by Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Some demonstrators wore patches depicting a rose, and others T-shirts decorated with Kabuye's face.

"Why did they arrest Rose, and not the genocidaires?" asked genocide survivor Ididas Mpole. Kigali accuses Berlin of failing to detain hard-line Hutu leaders Rwanda blames for the genocide.

"It just doesn't make sense," Mpole told Reuters.

Berlin says it was obliged to act on the French warrants, but the Rwandan government says Kabuye was on official business in Germany and had diplomatic immunity. Kigali asked the German ambassador to leave and recalled its envoy from Berlin.

Kabuye's arrest this month marked a new low in relations between France and Rwanda, which has broken off diplomatic ties over the warrants issued by judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere in 2006.

Relations between France and Rwanda soured further after an independent Rwandan commission, set up to investigate France's role in the genocide, heard in late 2006 from victims who said they had been raped by French troops.

In August, Kigali accused 33 French political and military officials, including former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and late President Francois Mitterrand, of involvement in the 100 days of killings.

France, a supporter of the Hutu-led regime that ruled Rwanda in the years leading up to the genocide, has always denied any involvement in the massacres.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Kigali; editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Roche)