The lawyer representing the Director General of State Protocol, who was arrested in Germany over the weekend, has said that his client is innocent and a victim of high level political machinations.

Rose Kabuye was arrested by German authorities Sunday on arrival at Frankfurt airport while on an official government mission.

The arrest was made on the basis of the highly controversial universal jurisdiction clause in the French law.

Judge, Jean Louis Bruguière charged, Kabuye and eight other senior Rwandan officials claiming that they had taken part in the shooting down of a plane carrying former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6, 1994.

The indictments have been condemned by Rwanda and several international organizations, including the African Union and the Pan African Parliament who believe the they are politically motivated.

"From the very beginning, we insisted that Rose Kabuye has nothing to do with this file. She is totally innocent,” said Belgian lawyer Bernard Maingain speaking to The New Times by phone Monday.

He said that ever since the indictments were made public in 2006, numerous requests to French authorities to bring the matter to court had fallen on deaf ears.

"But after two years of continuous requests to bring the matter to court, the French authorities have remained silent. Instead the indictments were published on the internet, clearly in violation of the law,” he said.

Maingain also condemned the issuing of arrest warrants with no possibility of appeal an abuse of human rights guarantees in Europe.

He pointed out that ever since Kabuye was arrested, she had consistently requested to be taken to France to face her accusers, but that the French were dragging their feet.

The lawyer also castigated the German authorities for violating the Vienna Convention because Kabuye was carrying a diplomatic passport and on an official government mission at the time of her arrest.

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