France's Hollande to declassify Rwanda genocide documents: source (Reuters) - Jessica Bae

France's Hollande to declassify Rwanda genocide documents: source

 (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande has decided to declassify documents related to the Rwanda genocide that killed over 800,000 people in 1994, a source close to the president's office told Reuters on Tuesday.

The documents from between 1990 and 1994 include minutes from secret defense meetings and files from advisers to then-president Francois Mitterrand relating to the genocide in the central African state, the source said.

The documents will be available to researchers and historians if they make a request to Dominique Bertinotti, a former minister and custodian of Mitterrand's archives.

More than 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in a three-month rampage by ethnic Hutu extremists in 1994 while the world largely stood by.

France - an ally of the Rwandan government that ruled before the genocide - stayed away from last year's 20-year commemoration after rebel-turned-President Paul Kagame renewed accusations of a direct French role in the killings.

While Paris has acknowledged mistakes in its dealings with Rwanda, it has repeatedly dismissed accusations that it trained militias to take part in the 1994 massacres.