Rwanda commission to investigate 1994 assassination that sparked genocide News
Rwanda commission to investigate 1994 assassination that sparked genocide

[JURIST] Rwandan Information Minister Laurent Nkusi said Thursday that the government of Rwanda has completed setting up a commission charged with investigating the 1994 assassination of then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana [Britannica profile]. The downing of the plane carrying the Hutu leader sparked the 1994 genocide [BBC backgrounder] in which more than 800,000 people were killed in the span of 100 days. Nkusi also said Rwanda intends to start a new investigation into the role France played in the 1994 genocide. Rwanda began a government probe [JURIST report] into the alleged French role in the genocide late last year.

Rwanda severed diplomatic ties [JURIST report] with France last year after a report filed by French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere [BBC profile] implicated current Rwandan President Paul Kagame [official website; BBC profile] in the 1994 killing. Last year, Tutsi Kagame declared that France supported the 1994 genocide by providing Hutu militias with training and weapons. Kagame has denied any involvement in the downing of his predecessor's plane. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.