Félicien Kabuga, suspect of genocide in Rwanda, was presented to the public prosecutor's office in Paris

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Four days after his arrest, the Rwandan businessman Félicien Kabuga, alleged financier of the Tutsi genocide, was presented this Tuesday at the Paris Prosecutor's Office.

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It is a truly judicial marathon which started on Tuesday. Félicien Kabuga was presented to the Attorney General after the Paris Court of Appeal. This Wednesday, he appears before the Investigation Chamber. But at the request of his lawyer, Me Emmanuel Altit, the hearing should be postponed until next Wednesday. The chamber will then have 15 days to rule on the validity of the arrest warrant issued by the Mechanism, the structure responsible for completing the work of the International Tribunal for Rwanda. If it gives a favorable opinion, Félicien Kabuga will then have the opportunity to appeal to the court of cassation, which will then have two months to rule.

The next logical step would be for the man who fled international justice for 26 years to be transferred to The Hague, the Netherlands. It should therefore be judged by the Mechanism. His trial would then be held either in The Hague or in Arusha, Tanzania. But what will happen if the Rwandan authorities ask to try him?

History could then turn into a showdown between Kigali and The Hague. Serge Brammertz, the Mechanism's prosecutor, ruled out such a hypothesis on Monday on RFI , believing that only the structure he heads was competent to prosecute him. In reality, however, a trial in Kigali is not impossible. But this requires a reform of the statutes of the mechanism, a reform which must be approved by a vote of the United Nations Security Council.

In Asnières-sur-Seine, the neighborhood is in shock

Félicien Kabuga was arrested on Saturday morning, in the Paris suburbs, in Asnières-sur-Seine, where his neighborhood oscillates between shock and surprise when discovering his identity. Aged 84, Félicien Kabuga lived in the utmost discretion, noted our journalist Bineta Diagne .

Saïda opens the windows every morning to play with her son on her balcony. But this Saturday, she comes face to face with the police who enter her building. “  I see, posted in front of the building, three trucks of the gendarmerie, with hooded gendarmes who had opened the front door. A few hours later, we saw an old man, very weak, get embarked.  "

This "  old man  " is Félicien Kabuga, too old and weak to be handcuffed, says Saïda. "  He was not handcuffed, no, no. He was very much diminished. We often saw him go for walks with a member of his family, he walked like a turtle.  "

Félicien Kabuga lived in the greatest discretion, under a false identity. So much so that his neighbors describe him as a distant character, like Julie, in her forties. "  He is a neighbor whom we met very little, who did not speak and who barely said hello.  "

Reading the newspapers and discovering the identity of her neighbor on the 3rd floor, for Julie, it's the cold shower. "  It's as if Klaus Barbie or Hitler lives in our building! This genocide in Rwanda ... We are very, very shocked.  "

According to the national gendarmerie, these are the traces left by the children of Félicien Kabuga which would have allowed the investigators to locate him after several years of research.

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