Genocide ‘financier’ to face UN judges

Arusha. The alleged mastermind-cum-financier of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Mr Felicien Kabuga, will appear before the UN Tribunal in The Hague tomorrow
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) announced yesterday that all was set for the initial appearance of the fugitive in the Court chamber.
Pre-Trial Judge Iain Bonomy has instructed the prosecution to inform and avail Mr Kabuga and his counsel on the trial readiness at the The Hague branch of the Mechanism.
“Allow  Kabuga to either participate in the initial appearance in person in the courtroom of The Hague branch or via video conference link,” the Mechanism said in a dispatch to the media.
The suspect was arrested in Paris, France, on May 16 this year, after being on the run for  25 years for his role in the  1994 massacre in Rwanda which left over 800,000 people dead.
He was first indicted by the now disbanded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on  26th November, 1997 but it took more than a quarter of a century to be arrested.
His transfer into the custody of the Mechanism was authorized by  the French judiciary on September 30th on the basis of the arrest warrant with the actual transfer executed on October 26th.
Judge Bonomy said considering his health condition and as a precaution against Covid-19, Mr Kabuga (87) can opt to appear via a video -teleconference link.
Mr Kabuga, once considered the richest person in Rwanda, was until recently the most wanted person in the world for war crimes and had a $5 million cash prize  for his arrest offered by the US.
He is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide and  conspiracy to commit genocide.
Other charges include extermination and persecution as crimes against humanity, in respect of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.
Besides the Presiding Judge Bonomy from the United Kingdom, other judges in his case at the UN Tribunal are Graciela Susana Gatti Santana (Uruguay) and Judge Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya from Uganda.
Human rights activists, the genocide survivors and Rwanda government have pressed for the trial of the fugitive at the Mechanism chambers in Arusha, the seat of ICTR which closed shop in 2015.
Until  December 2015, the Tribunal convicted 61 fugitives and acquitted 14 others. Six other alleged masterminds of the killings are still at large and are being hunted  down across the world.
The Rwanda genocide, which targeted the Tutsi ethnic group, was  triggered by the killing of the former Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana when his plane was shot down at Kigali airport on April 6, 1994.

_______________________________________________

Zephania Ubwani@TheCitizenTz [email protected]