Amsterdam, May 18, (dpa/GNA) – Félicien Kabuga, an alleged key financier of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has died in hospital while in detention in The Hague, a United Nations court said on Saturday.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), said its detention facility’s medical officer was immediately informed, and an investigation into the circumstances of Kabuga’s death had been launched.
Kabuga, a wealthy Rwandan businessman, was accused of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, as well as crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors alleged he financed and armed the Hutu militia Interahamwe, which carried out much of the killing of at least 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu in 1994. Hundreds of thousands of people were also subjected to sexual violence. He was also accused of playing a leading role in the genocide-inciting broadcaster RTLM, which publicly called for the massacre of the Tutsi minority. Kabuga denied the charges in court, describing them as “lies.”
The genocide was triggered after a plane carrying Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down over the capital Kigali on April 6, 1994, killing the Hutu leader. Kabuga was a close ally of Habyarimana and his political party.
Three years ago, the court ruled that Kabuga, who was over 90 at the time, was unfit to stand trial due to dementia, saying he was unable to follow proceedings. Judges had ordered that evidence be examined in an alternative procedure to establish the facts, but without imposing a sentence.
According to the court, Kabuga was born in 1935; his exact date of birth remains unknown. Kabuga was arrested in Paris in May 2020, after more than three decades on the run, and transferred later that year to the UN court in The Hague.
Citing his poor health, advanced age and the Covid-19 pandemic, he successfully opposed transfer to the IRMCT’s branch in Arusha, Tanzania, where Rwanda-related cases are typically heard. The IRMCT handles the remaining cases of the UN tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
GNA