Félicien Kabuga: Rwanda genocide fugitive arrested in France

The Hague, May 16 (efe-epa).- Félicien Kabuga, one of the most wanted suspects of the Rwandan genocide, has been arrested in Paris on Saturday, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) said in a statement.

Kabuga was arrested by French authorities following a joint investigation with the IRMCT Prosecutor’s Office.

“French police arrested Kabuga in a sophisticated, coordinated operation with simultaneous searches across a number of locations,” Mechanism Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.

He will be transferred to the Netherlands in the next few days, where he will stand trial.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has charged the 84-year-old with genocide and crimes against humanity.

According to the IRMCT’s Prosecutor’s Office, Kabuga allegedly played a key role in financing the genocide of hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

Ethnic Hutu extremists killed at least 800,000 members of the Tutsi community and political opponents.

“Kabuga was indicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 on seven counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution and extermination, all in relation to crimes committed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda,” the IRMCT said.

After the Rwanda civil war, Kabuga fled to Switzerland, then-Republic of Zaire (now Democratic Republic Congo) and Kenya.

The businessman allegedly imported tens of thousands of the machetes from Kenya which were used in the mass slaughter of Tutsis and opponents.