Berlin's ambassador to Rwanda was given 24 hours to leave the country Nov. 11 in response to the Nov. 9 arrest of a Rwandan presidential aide in Germany in connection with the 1994 assassination of then-president Juvenal Habyarima that touched off the Rwanda genocide. Rose Kabuye, an aide to Rwandan President Paul Kagame and an official in the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), was arrested in Frankfurt under a 2006 European warrant issued by French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière.

Rwandan Minister for Foreign Affairs Rosemary Museminali said that the expulsion of Christian Clages did not mean that Rwanda had permanently severed ties with Germany. However, Rwanda's ambassador to Germany Eugene Richard Gasana, has also been recalled.

In October, German authorities transferred Augustin Ngirabatware, a former Rwandan minister suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide, from a facility in Frankfurt to a UN detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania, where he faces trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In July, German border police arrested Rwandan war crimes suspect Callixte Mbarushiman as he was preparing to travel to Russia. He had been the subject of an Interpol search effort. (Jurist, Nov. 12)

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