Kigali - Rwandan President Paul Kagame scoffed on Monday at French investigators' bid to reopen their probe into the 1994 assassination of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.
On April 6, 1994, a French-crewed plane carrying Habyarimana was shot down by a missile. His assassination ignited ethnic tensions and helped spark the Rwandan genocide in which about 1 million people were killed in 100 days.
In 2006, French investigators implicated several Rwandan officials and issued arrest warrants for several army officers, prompting a diplomatic row, in which Rwanda cut off its diplomatic ties with France.
In 2008, after a two-year investigation, Rwanda accused 33 French political and military officials, including former Prime Minister Dominic de Villepin and the late President Francois Mitterand, of playing an active role in the Rwandan genocide. France dismissed the accusation as "unacceptable."
In 2014, the case was closed as French judges countered the earlier report that blamed Rwandan officers for the assassination.
However, media reports last week said French investigators want to reopen the case and question Rwandan dissidents, including Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa who served as the chief of army staff between 1994 and 2004, and is now living in exile in South Africa.
"If starting all over again is a showdown, then we will have a showdown," Kagame said at the opening of the 2016/17 new judicial year.
"After investigating the case for two years, not finding anything, they want to start all over again. I have no problem with that. I have to remind some people that the judicial system of Rwanda is not subordinate to France or French interests," Kagame said.
"France should be the one being tried for the genocide, not anybody in Rwanda and not Rwandans," he added.
Kagame suggested the French embassy in Kigali be closed again.
Xinhua