Rwanda's Former First Lady to Appeal Decision to Reopen Genocide Probe Against Her

Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of former President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana.

Rwanda's former first lady Agathe Habyarimana will appeal last week's court ruling that overturned a 2025 decision to dismiss an investigation into her role in the 1994 genocide.

The killing spree was triggered by the assassination of her husband, former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana. Over 100 days, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were brutally murdered.

Now 83, Agathe Habyarimana has been under investigation for complicity in the genocide since 2008.

She has never been formally charged but has the status of an 'assisted witness,' a French legal category between a witness and a defendant.

Prosecutors allege that she led the 'Akazu,' or inner circle of Hutu power, and played an active role in planning the massacres, drawing up lists of people to be executed.

Habyarimana has rejected the allegations, saying she was a stay-at-home mother of eight children with no link to politics.

In 2025, a lower court found that there was insufficient evidence to continue the investigation but following an appeal by the French National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office, that ruling was dismissed.

Her lawyer has described the decision to re-open the case as “incomprehensible,” saying there was no evidence to seriously support these claims. He said she will now take the case to the Supreme Court and won't hesitate to take it to the European Court of Human Rights.