Protais Zigiranyirazo during his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
The administrative court in the French municipality of Orléans has upheld a decision by the city to block the burial of Protais Zigiranyirazo, known as “Mr. Z,” a figure linked to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The municipality had already banned the planned burial on August 28, citing a “serious risk of public disorder.”
The court confirmed the ban, pointing to heightened tensions with genocide survivors’ associations and the fear that the grave could become a site of pilgrimage.
Zigiranyirazo, who died on August 3 at the age of 87, was the elder brother of Agathe Habyarimana, widow of former Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana.
He is reported to have died from Niger, where he and 7 other genocide convicts has been living after no country accepted to host them. His extended family wants him laid to rest in France.
However, campaigners have opposed burying Zigiranyirazo in France arguing that will create some kind of monument for the continued negation of the genocide against Tutsis.
Zigiranyirazo was sentenced in 2008 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to 20 years in prison for genocide but was acquitted on appeal in 2009 after judges ruled there had been serious errors in the handling of evidence.
The family’s lawyer, Philippe Meilhac, denounced the ruling as “a very serious violation of fundamental rights” relating to funerals and burial, insisting the body cannot remain indefinitely in a funeral home near Orléans.
He said he will appeal to France’s Council of State and may file another case with the administrative court.
The family is still pondering what to do next.
