By Arthur Asiimwe

KIGALI, March 29 (Reuters) - Rwanda will appoint independent experts to investigate the death of a former president killed when his plane was shot down in an assassination widely seen as the trigger for its 1994 genocide, officials said on Thursday.

"Cabinet has agreed to set up an independent commission of experts to investigate the downing of (Juvenal Habyarimana's jet) on April 6, 1994," a government statement said. It did not say when the inquiry would start, and gave no other details.

Kigali severed diplomatic ties with Paris in November after a French judge called for Rwanda's president, former rebel Paul Kagame, to stand trial for killing his predecessor Habyarimana.

Kigali slammed the charges as a cover-up for what it said was France's role training soldiers who took part in the three months of massacres in 1994 in which some 800,000 people died.

Kagame's government already has a commission holding hearings into claims French forces supported the soldiers and extremists behind the genocide. France denies any wrongdoing by its troops, who were part of a U.N. peacekeeping force.

Rwanda says it must acknowledge its role in the slaughter and apologise to Kigali if it wants to resume ties.

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