The investigating chamber met on Wednesday 28 January 2026 to examine the appeal lodged by the public prosecutor’s office and the civil parties against the order dismissing the case issued on 20 August 2025 in the Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana affair. She has already publicly claimed that she has been declared “innocent”. What is the reality?
The charm offensive launched in January 2026 by Rwanda’s former ruling clan, aimed at the country’s youth, is unprecedented. Two one-minute videos in Kinyarwanda were posted on social media on Tuesday, 27 and Wednesday, 28 January 2026 convey its substance. They feature a young man conversing with Agathe Habyarimana — whose birth name is Kanziga — the former First Lady of Rwanda, in a setting that ticks all the boxes of today’s popular podcast aesthetic. According to them, Agathe Kanziga has been cleared by the courts of any involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which claimed a million victims.
— I followed the news this year when the judge said you were innocent. Beyond the fact that you are innocent, she also said you are a victim of what happened. How did those words affect you?
— I said: “My God, you already know me. You already knew I am a victim and an innocent. And now it has been said publicly thanks to your power.”
Agathe Kanziga and her interlocutor are referring to a dismissal order (non-lieu) that benefited the former first lady on 20 August 2025. Until then, she had been under investigation in France for “complicity in genocide”, “complicity in crimes against humanity” and “conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity”. She is presumed innocent. However, the Habyarimana clan is not only offering a selective and biased reading of this decision; they are also spreading an interpretation that may be misleading.
African Facts examines the disagreement between the parties in this case and the implications of the decision to dismiss the case. This does not exonerate Agathe Kanziga from all responsibility, nor does it absolve her of the gravest political failings and moral transgressions committed before, during and after the genocide. The former first lady is not definitively immune from prosecution. Furthermore, the inalienable right to seek the truth and tell the facts remains, regardless of the legal outcome of such a case.
Legal battle
On Wednesday, 28 January 2026, the Investigation Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal met in closed session for four hours to consider the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s and the civil parties’ appeal against the 20 August 2025 dismissal order in favour of Agathe Kanziga and refusal of additional proceedings.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office requested that the order be overturned and that the case be returned to an investigating judge to continue the judicial investigation. They highlighted weaknesses in the judge’s reasoning and contradictions between the case file and the decision. And the shortcomings in the investigation are numerous. The prosecutor and the civil parties deplored the fact that only a period of a few days had been considered, that numerous investigative actions had not been carried out, that significant evidence had not been examined, that crucial testimony had been overlooked and that Agathe Kanziga’s account — and that of her family — was taken at face value. They also criticised the fact that the magistrate had based her conclusions on a report written by an individual whom they demonstrate is notoriously known to be a supporter of the former regime and a genocide denier.
While awaiting the outcome of the deliberations, which will be announced on 8 April, Agathe Kanziga and her relatives can revel in this initial success. All the more so since certain interpretative — and, to say the least, troubling — wordings by Judge Stéphanie Tacheau opportunely suit their purpose. “Agathe Kanziga does not appear to be the perpetrator of the genocide, but rather a victim of this terrorist attack”, writes the magistrate, referring to another case: the deadly attack on 6 April 1994 against the dictator Juvénal Habyarimana, who was Agathe Kanziga’s husband. This complex case also ended in dismissal in 2020, without establishing what role, if any, the former first lady played – as victim, accomplice or instigator.
African Facts previously investigated the involvement of Aloys Ntiwiragabo in this deadly plot and the exploitation of the related case. Another of our investigations reveals that he turns out to be a member of Agathe Kanziga inner circle
Whatever the outcome, the dismissal order does not mean that the former first lady is blameless — let alone definitively cleared — in the immense catastrophe that struck the Land of thousand hills. That is not what is at stake.
What a “non-lieu” does really mean
In French criminal procedure, there are three ways to halt proceedings against a suspect in this kind of serious criminal case: refusal to open a judicial investigation (refus d’informer), dismissal (non-lieu), or acquittal. They occur at three distinct stages.
When a complaint is filed as a civil party, as in the Agathe Kanziga case, an investigating judge is automatically appointed. The judge may decide to open a judicial investigation, or conversely to refuse (refus d’informer), but only if the case is time-barred or if the alleged offence is not criminal. In Ms Kanziga’s case, a judicial investigation targeted the former first lady until May 2025.
The investigating judge may close the investigation and issue a dismissal order (non-lieu) in five situations: if the perpetrator is unknown or has died; if it turns out that the facts do not constitute a crime; if there is insufficient evidence to bring the suspect before a criminal court; or if the person cannot be held criminally responsible (e.g. coercion or self-defence).
“If the investigating judge considers that the facts do not constitute a crime, an offence or a contravention, or if the perpetrator has remained unknown, or if there are insufficient charges against the person under investigation, he declares, by an order, that there is no reason to proceed. […]“
Article 177 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure
The reasons given by judges to justify their decisions are therefore essential to understanding them. Beyond the controversial wording used in the 20 August 2025 order, it is the “absence of sufficient charges against Agathe Habyarimana” that, in legal terms, grounds the decision to issue a dismissal.
What a “non-lieu” is not
A dismissal differs from an acquittal. At the end of a public trial in a criminal court, the three judges and six citizen jurors, who are selected at random, may conclude that the defendant is not guilty and acquit them. This occurs when, after examining the evidence and hearing the arguments, fewer than seven of them are firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt.
This decision to acquit — at first instance or on appeal — becomes final and carries the “authority of res judicata”, preventing a person from being tried twice for the same crime. That is not the case with a dismissal order like the one issued in the Agathe Kanziga affair, which is not a judgement. The prosecutor could request the reopening of the judicial investigation if “new charges” emerges.
“A person under investigation in respect of whom the investigating judge has declared that there is no reason to proceed may not be prosecuted again on the same facts, unless new evidence arises.”
Article 188 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure
Agathe Kanziga has therefore not been definitively placed above any suspicion by the French courts. While refusing to take further action, the investigating magistrate concluded that the evidence available was insufficient to bring the former first lady before a criminal court at this stage. The magistrate dismissed the case, a decision contested by the public prosecutor’s office and the civil parties. Even if upheld by the Investigating Chamber, this decision does not amount to an acquittal and does not definitively close the door to prosecution.
Judicial truth and historical facts
From the outset of the proceedings, Agathe Kanziga has been presumed innocent and remains so. In legal terms, doubt benefit her. Nor is it permissible to publicly designate her as guilty of a crime in the absence of a criminal court conviction. A conviction is only pronounced when the adversarial examination of the evidence has legally, materially and morally characterised a crime and demonstrated the guilt of the accused.
“Every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty (…)”
Article 9 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
That is where judicial truth — and the role of judges — ends. Despite the ambiguous wording of the 20 August 2025 order, it is not the investigating judge’s role to write the history of Rwanda and the genocide against the Tutsi, but rather to decide, in accordance with the law and their conscience, whether the case file should lead Agathe Kanziga to stand trial before an criminal court or not.
By their very nature, the grounds for such decision contain only a partial, constrained and instrumental truth, which is necessarily and strictly limited to the specific requirements and purposes of criminal proceedings. The 20 August 2025 order is therefore merely one fragment within a vast constellation of memories, subjective experiences, accounts, interpretations, documents and facts, of which the judicial sphere can grasp only a tiny portion.
Without breaching the presumption of innocence that applies to all individuals, judicial proceedings and decisions can be discussed and criticised. Some of their content may even be challenged or refuted. Beyond this judicial framework, the search for truth remains possible and even necessary. The political and moral wrongdoings that Agathe Kanziga and her close circle may have engaged in do not necessarily fall within the scope of criminal law. However, given teir catastrophic consequences, they cannot be ignored or forgotten.
All that remains now is the decision of the investigating chamber, due on 8 April. Even if upheld, the dismissal (non-lieu) would not dispel the sense of a judicial shipwreck this case has come to embody. It would enshrine an investigation left in midstream, in which even the most basic steps were neglected and to which the minimum diligence required by allegations of such gravity was not applied. Left as it stands, the case would inevitably come to symbolise yet another culpable failing in the way the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has been received and handled in France.
