A former FBI investigator accused
Paul Kagame
Prepared Statement of Mr. James R. Lyons
Statement regarding the April 6, 1994 assassination of the Presidents of
Aircraft.
I am a retired Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) having served from November 1970 through July 1995.
Most of my FBI career was spent in the area of counter-terrorism in the
New York Office. I was an original member of the FBI/New York Police
Department (NYPD) Domestic Terrorism Task Force, which was formed in
1980. I was promoted to Supervisory Special Agent in 1987 with the task
of forming a second task force to address the growing threat of
international terrorism. In that capacity, I performed supervisory
investigative duties in numerous terrorist bombing and political
assassination cases committed by various international terrorist groups
from all over the world. In addition, I was the FBI, New York Office on
site supervisor following the bombings of the
detailed as a supervisor to the post blast investigation following the
bombing of the
In February 1996, I was contracted by the US Department of State as an
investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Shortly after my arrival in
Investigations, which was actually a United Nations staff post. At that
time there was a Deputy Prosecutor, Honre Rokatomanana, a Director of
Investigations, Al Breau and only twenty-three investigators. Seventeen
of the investigators were police officers seconded to the ICTR by the
Government of the
At that time, the strategy of the Director of Investigations with the
approval of the Deputy Prosecutor, was to identify
victims/witnesses to
the genocide in the western and southern Prefectures such as Kibuye and
Butare and obtain signed statements implicating the targets who were the
Prefects, communal officials, local leaders of the Hutu Interahamwe
militia, and local businessmen. The strategy was to charge these
individuals in connection with the Genocide with the hope of gaining the
cooperation of some in order to move up the ladder to the "Big Fish."
There was a separate investigation into the role of the media in
inciting the Hutu population to violence against the Tutsi and moderate
Hutu. In view of the lack of manpower and other resources, other
avenues, such as investigating the role of national political and
military leaders were put on hold.
In March/April, 1994, more investigators began to arrive, including
Michael Hourigan, a former Australian Crown Prosecutor. In view of the
influx of a few more investigators, I and the Director of Investigations
agreed that a new "National Investigative Team" be formed to target
those responsible for the planning of and the eventual execution of the
Genocide and at my suggestion, Mr. Hourigan was appointed the Team
Leader. The team began with three investigators but eventually grew to
twenty members representing the nations of
States
The National Team was given the task of investigating a number of the
ICTR's most important lines of inquiry. Principal among these tasks were:
1. The Investigation and prosecution of Colonel Theoneste Bagosora,
considered to be the leading Hutu military force behind the Genocide.
2. The investigation and prosecution of persons with overall
responsibility for the selected killings of Rwandan political leaders
and intellegencia by elite Presidential Guard kill teams, which occurred
during the first 48-72 hours of the downing of the president's airplane.
3. The investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the
rocket attack on April 6, 1994, which resulted in the downing of the
Presidential Airplane, killing Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana,
Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira, the French crew and all others aboard.
As the Commander of Investigations, I believed that the investigation of
the rocket attack was within the mandate of the ICTR. It was the spark
that ignited all of
take the lives of 700,000 to 1,000,000 men, women and children. The UN
Security Council had expressed its abhorrence at this terrorist attack
and had directed that all information regarding the event be gathered.
The ICTR Statute, Article 4, specifically included Acts of Terrorism in
its list of offenses. In my view, there was more than ample
justification for the ICTR to consider the rocket attack as an
international criminal event falling well within its jurisdiction.
No member of the ICTR leadership ever suggested to me that this
investigation was outside our mandate. On the contrary, discussions
among senior personnel concerned the enormous challenge that lay ahead
to identify those responsible.
The National Team's investigation was thorough but slow moving
initially. The world community had long attributed the attack to hard
line Hutus close to the President but there was no evidence supporting
that theory. There was some speculation that the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) was responsible and there were bits of information to support that
view.
The National Team obtained information in 1996 that a United Nations
Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) soldier had overheard a radio
broadcast over an RPF network shortly after the plane crash saying that
the target has been hit. In
addition, there was a report that a soldier
in the Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR) heard the same or a similar broadcast.
Mr. Hourigan regularly briefed me and other senior ICTR staff members on
the progress of the investigations and that always included the plane
crash investigation. Hourigan and some members of his team briefed Chief
Prosecutor Louise Arbour during one of her few visits to
time did Judge Arbour relay to me, or to my knowledge, any other senior
investigator that the plane crash was outside the mandate of the ICTR.
I always worked closely with Mr. Hourigan and his team and was
continually briefed on developments. In February 1997, there was a
dramatic turn of events in the investigation when three potential
cooperating witnesses came forward. Two of the witnesses knew of each
other's cooperation. The third was independent and we believe, had no
knowledge of the other two. The witnesses were all past or present
members of the RPF and because of their duties were in a position to
personally know the accuracy of information being furnished.
The information furnished, although untested, was extremely detailed to
the point of naming individuals involved in the planning and the
execution of the rocket attack. The sources advised that the then leader
of the RPF, General Paul Kagame, formed a commando type group referred
to as the "network" and that he and his senior advisors had put into
affect the plan to shoot down the Presidential aircraft as it approached
Kigali Airport.
During the last days of February 1997 I was present with Mr. Hourigan at
the US Embassy in
on the Embassy secure telephone line. He briefed her on the latest
developments in the plane crash investigation. It was obvious to me,
from listening to Mr. Hourigan's side of the conversation, that Judge
Arbour was pleased with the progress of the case and enthusiastic about
continuing the investigation. Later, Mr. Hourigan advised me that Judge
Arbour asked him to travel to
discuss this matter personally.
On the first Monday in March, 1997 I returned to the
contract was finished and I did not choose to extend it. I later had a
telephone conversation with Mr. Hourigan during which he advised me that
during his meeting with Judge Arbour, she unexpectedly ordered him to
shut down the investigation. She explained that the shooting down of the
President's airplane was a crime outside the jurisdiction of the ICTR.
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