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Jean-Claude Lefort, vice-president of the Parliamentary Information Mission: "The field of suspects is reduced to those who had access to the crash zone in the hours following the attack"

Number: 293
Date: 20 octobre 1998
Author: Lefort, Jean-Claude
Title: Note n° 19 à Bernard Cazeneuve
Source: MIP
Public records: MIN
Abstract: Jean-Claude Lefort, vice-president of the Parliamentary Information Mission, notes in a letter from General Rannou (head of the military cabinet of the Minister of Defence, François Léotard, at the time of the attack) that the Falcon plane of the President Habyarimana was well equipped with "two black boxes". Knowing that French soldiers, technical assistants to the FAR, had access to the crash site and looked for these black boxes, he concludes: "I see that someone thought it was better to make them disappear [the two black boxes]. This narrows the field of suspects to those who had access to the crash area in the hours following the attack".
Comment: Jean-Claude Lefort refused to sign the report of the Parliamentary Information Mission. In an interview of April 2008 (La Nuit rwandaise, n° 2, April 7, 2008, p. 232), he pointed out that the president and the two rapporteurs of this mission were all three from same parliamentary group, contrary to custom. "I feel a certain unease because I have the feeling that we have definitely missed a truth that we had to seek at all costs". Jean Claude Lefort published several notes that he had sent during the work of the Mission to the co-rapporteur Bernard Cazeneuve, including the one appearing opposite.
Citation: 3) La lettre du général Rannou en date du 15 juin 1998 confirme officiellement la présence à bord du Falcon 50 des deux "boîtes noires" habituelles, un CVR (enregistreur des conversations de l'équipage) et un enregistreur des paramètres de bord. J'ignore si leur analyse "n'aurait pas été de nature à éclaircir les circonstances exactes" de l'attentat, comme l'estime le général Rannou, mais je constate que quelqu'un a pensé qu'il était préférable de les faire disparaître. Ce qui réduit le champ des suspects à ceux qui eurent accès à la zone du crash dans les heures qui ont suivi l'attentat.

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