Rwanda genocide probe eyes French army

KIGALI, Rwanda, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- A Rwandan prosecutor has opened a formal inquiry to determine if French troops conspired, or assisted in the 1994 massacre of some 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis.

A lawsuit was filed by six survivors who said they witnessed atrocities committed with the complicity of the French Army, but military investigator Jacques Baillet rejected four of the plaintiffs on grounds they had not suffered personally.

The unrest and massacres began after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash, and France deployed a force of about 2,500 soldiers to its former colony.

One of the two survivors said in a statement she watched French soldiers use knives to kill fellow Tutsis while another said French soldiers watched and did nothing as Hutus chased and killed Tutsis from a jungle camp.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie described the claims as outlandish, The Times of London said Monday.

In 1998, a French parliamentary committee attempted to investigate France's role in the genocide, but most of the evidence it examined was classified as a state secret.