PARIS, Feb 16 (AFP) - Six Rwandan nationals filed suit in a French military court on Wednesday, alleging that French soldiers were complicit in the 1994 genocide in the tiny central African country, their attorneys announced.
The suit, filed against unnamed defendants for "complicity in genocide and/or crimes against humanity", was filed in the Paris army tribunal, the only court with jurisdiction to try French soldiers for crimes committed abroad.
William Bourdon and Antoine Comte, the lawyers for the six Rwandan plaintiffs, said their clients were persecuted, injured and saw most of their family members killed in the 1994 genocide.
The complaint hits out at Operation Turquoise, under which UN-mandated French troops were tasked with creating a secure humanitarian area in southwestern Rwanda.
The plaintiffs claim that French troops allowed Rwandan forces and Hutu extremists known as the Interahamwe to enter camps under their protection, where they kidnapped minority Tutsis.
Comte also said that witnesses had seen French troops "capture Tutsis, place them in helicopters and thrown them out into the open sky."
"From our point of view, these facts can be seen as complicity in genocide, as there was an actual participation by French troops in operations against a specific ethnic group," Comte said.
But an attorney experienced with cases before the French military tribunal told AFP that the court would likely not decide to hear the case, as such issues were in the domain of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide claimed the lives of some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Paris has repeatedly denied any blame for what happened in Rwanda.
02/16/2005 15:44 GMT - AFP