INTERVIEW
Accused of having financed the Rwandan genocide, Félicien Kabuga, 84, was arrested Saturday morning near Paris after twenty-six years on the run, paving the way for a trial before international justice. At the microphone of Europe 1, Alain Gauthier, president of the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, reacted to this announcement, which he considers as "exceptional news".
"The arrest of Félicien Kabuga, the financier of the genocide, is exceptional news for us," he explains. Because after so many years on the run, Alain Gauthier began to despair. "I no longer believed we would be able to find him. He had been on the run for 26 years," he said. Even if, according to Alain Gauthier, he "knew that Félicien Kabuga had family in France" including his daughters, he was "resigned".
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Alain Gauthier thought it in exile, notably in "Kenya" and "everywhere", benefiting from "the protection of important politicians and important presidents". Refugee in Switzerland in July 1994 before being expelled, Félicien Kabuga then temporarily joined Kinshasa. He was reported in July 1997 in Nairobi, where he escaped an operation to arrest him, then another in 2003, according to the specialized NGO TRIAL.
Soon facing justice
"For him, his run is over. I now hope he can be brought to justice," hopes Alain Gauthier.
Félicien Kabuga is notably accused of having created the Interahamwe militias, the main armed arms of the 1994 genocide which claimed 800,000 lives according to the UN. He must now be quickly presented to the Nanterre prosecution for his imprisonment, then to the Paris public prosecutor's office in the coming days. An extradition procedure will follow before the investigative chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, which will decide on its surrender to the International Mechanism in The Hague, for it to be judged.