OSLO — Abdul Ruzibiza, a former captain of a Tutsi rebel group and key witness in a French judge’s investigation into a 1994 attack that triggered the Rwandan genocide, has died, Norwegian police said yesterday. He was 40.
Mr. Ruzibiza died in a Norwegian hospital Wednesday after a lengthy illness, said Reidun Brekke, who was Ruzibiza’s supervisor at staffing company Adecco Norway.
A former captain of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Mr. Ruzibiza released a book in 2005, saying the group was behind the 1994 attack that shot down President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane.
That event set off attacks in the central African nation by extremist members of the Hutu majority, who killed both Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
About 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed in 100 days.
Mr. Ruzibiza’s testimony has been instrumental in an investigation led by a French judge who in 2006 concluded that Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame, ordered the attack.
