• Africa: Rwanda accuses France of being an accomplice to the genocide
  • Chronicle: latest murder of the genocide in Rwanda

Businessman Félicien Kabuga, one of the fugitives most wanted by international justice, was arrested this Saturday in Paris and will be tried for his role in financing the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The French authorities arrested Kabuga, 84, in an operation "sophisticated and coordinated with simultaneous searches in various places ," the Mechanism for International Criminal Courts (MTPI) said in a statement.

The businessman is considered the banker of the Rwandan genocide , as he is accused of establishing the so-called National Defense Fund, which provided machetes, hoes, vehicles and uniforms to the Inter-Hamwe militia , responsible for much of the killings. Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in Rwanda between April and June 1994, according to UN figures, by extremist Hutu militias, civilians of this ethnic group and the Army.

The indictment states that Kabuga, along with other people, instigated the crimes during meetings held in various regions of the country between March and May 1994. He founded and presided over a radio station, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines , which was used to spread a hate speech against the Tutsis, provide their locations and ask for their removal.

"The arrest of Félicien Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be held accountable, even 26 years after their crimes, " said MTPI Attorney General Serge Brammertz. The lawyer appreciated the "essential contribution" of Europol and Interpol, as well as the public prosecutors of Rwanda, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the United States.

"Our first thoughts should be with the victims and survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Exercising on their behalf is an immense professional honor for my entire office," added Brammertz.

Kabuga left his country in mid-1994 due to the advances of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , made up essentially of Tutsi militants, and fled first to Switzerland and then to Zaire (the current Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kenya. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, created by the UN Security Council, charged him in 1997 with seven counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement of genocide, and attempted genocide. All crimes were allegedly committed between April 6 and July 17, 1994.

Since the issuance of his arrest warrant, Kabuga has lived as a fugitive from Justice . The United States offered a $ 5 million reward in 2002 to find his whereabouts and was about to be arrested a year later in Kenya, but managed to escape a police operation.

The defendant will appear in the coming days before a French court to confirm his identity and hear the charges he will face at the MTPI, successor institution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Although MTPI criminal proceedings are regularly conducted in The Hague, Kabuga will most likely be tried at the court's headquarters in Arusha , a judicial source told Efe.

His arrest reduces the list of fugitives from the Rwandan genocide to seven. These include former Defense Minister Augustin Biziman, former presidential guard commander Protais Mpiranya, and former mayor of Gisovu Aloys Ndimbati.

The genocide was the culmination of decades of hatred between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority and its aftermath is still evident in Rwanda, where authorities began a month and a half ago the exhumation of the remains of some 30,000 victims, found in a mass grave. located to the east of the country.

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