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 had 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.
A member of Kabuye's legal team, Belgian lawyer Bernard Maingain, said she was escorted on a flight from Frankfurt by French police officers and taken to be interviewed by judges investigating the 1994 plane crash that killed former President Juvenal Habyarimana.
That event is widely seen as triggering the start of the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
After interviewing Kabuye, a judge ordered that she be released under court-ordered supervision, her lawyers said. She will have to remain in France to answer questions but will be allowed to travel abroad with a judge's permission.
"It's a reasonable decision which will allow the investigation to go ahead and the defense to formulate its requests so that the truth can emerge," said Kabuye's French lawyer, Lef Forster.
During the interview with anti-terrorist judge Marc Trevidic, Kabuye denied allegations of complicity in murder related to a terrorist enterprise, her lawyers said.
Earlier, thousands of demonstrators in the Rwandan capital Kigali chanted "Our Rose, Our Rose" and waved Rwandan flags as they demonstrated their support. Some waved placards reading: "Rose is innocent and she is ready to prove it."
"GET UP, STAND UP"
The peaceful protest stopped outside the German embassy, where a stage was set up and a band sang "Get up, Stand up" by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Some demonstrators wore patches showing 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 own envoy from Berlin.
Kabuye's arrest this month marked a new low point in relations between France and Rwanda, which has broken off diplomatic ties over the warrants issued by judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere in 2006
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