Rwanda accuses French army of planning and executing the 1994 genocide.

Rwanda has published a list of 22 French officers it accuses of helping plan and execute the 1994 genocide, in the latest sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries.

Rwanda’s National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (known by its French acronym CNLG) issued the list on Monday, a month after French investigators said they were re-opening a probe into who shot down then-president Juvenal Habyarimana’s jet triggering the genocide in which 800,000 mostly Tutsi people were killed.

“High-ranking French officers and political figures committed very serious crimes in Rwanda,” the CNLG said in a statement.

“The refusal to put an end to the judicial investigation and to exonerate Rwandan leaders who ended the genocide is designed to camouflage these responsibilities.”

A Rwandan enquiry found ethnic Hutu extremists responsible for Habyarimana’s assassination, but the French investigation was inconclusive.

That enquiry was reopened following a deposition submitted by former Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a one-time confidant of President Paul Kagame who has again pointed the finger of blame at Kagame.

The shooting down of the plane falls within French jurisdiction because the crew were French.

Last month Kagame warned of a “showdown” with France over the allegations. The row over responsibility for shooting down the plane has wrecked diplomatic relations in the past, causing a severing of ties between 2006 and 2009.

The CNLG accused the 22 senior French officers of involvement in the genocide “both as perpetrators and accomplices”.

Among those accused are the former army head, a chief of staff to former President Francois Mitterrand and the French commander of the UN-mandated Operation Turquoise which intervened in Rwanda two months after the start of the genocide.

Former Rwandan Mayor Sentenced To Life Over Role In Genocide

A German court sentenced a former Rwandan mayor to life in prison on Tuesday, convicting him after a second trial of participating in genocide for helping organize the killing of some 400 members of the Tutsi minority in 1994.

 
Onesphore Rwabukombe, 58, was convicted in 2014 of being an accessory to genocide and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Both sides appealed that ruling, and a federal court found that evidence heard at the original three-year trial suggested there was sufficient evidence for a tougher conviction.

 
It ordered the Frankfurt state court to reconsider the case, and judges ruled Tuesday after a five-day trial. Their finding of aggravated circumstances means that early release, which is common in Germany, is less likely.

 
Rwabukombe, a member of the Hutu majority who was mayor of Muvumba, was accused of ordering the attack at church grounds where the victims had taken refuge in the town of Kiziguro on April 11, 1994.

 
Rwabukombe denies having been at the site of the killings. However, the Frankfurt court found that he “knowingly and willingly, along with other authorities, prepared, organized, commanded and set in motion the massacre.”
The defendant, it said, “sought to accelerate and conclude the events — even when he himself was in danger from the advance of opposing troops.”

 
Rwabukombe, who sought asylum in Germany in 2002, was arrested in 2010 on an international warrant and has been in custody since then. He wasn’t extradited after authorities concluded he couldn’t receive a fair trial in Rwanda.

 
More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.