The alleged Rwandan genocidaire Félicien Kabuga imprisoned in The Hague

A sought-after poster depicting a photograph of Félicien Kabuga.

REUTERS / Benoit Tessier

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

Arrested in mid-May after 26 years on the run, the Rwandan businessman faces seven counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

At the end of September, the Court of Cassation validated the arrest warrant issued against him and ordered his transfer to the Mechanism, a UN body responsible for the latest cases of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which closed its doors in 2014. The Mechanism has two branches, one in Tanzania and the other in the Netherlands.

As soon as he arrived in Scheveningen prison, he was placed in quarantine.

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With our correspondent in The Hague,

Félicien Kabuga is spending his first night this Monday evening, October 26, in Scheveningen prison.

The Rwandan businessman should remain confined for ten days before being able to meet his new neighbors: the former political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, on trial by the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Also ten days before his first appearance during which he will have to say whether or not he pleads guilty to genocide and crimes against humanity.

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Félicien Kabuga should have joined the Arusha branch, where the Rwanda tribunal sat for a long time.

But at the defense request, supported by the prosecutor, a judge ruled that he would first stop in The Hague for medical examinations.

To decide if the octogenarian is fit or not to join Arusha despite his health problems.

And if the Covid-19 pandemic allows it.

The judge did not indicate the duration of the Dutch stopover of Félicien Kabuga.

The trial itself will not be opened for several months, the time for the prosecutor to review a file that has been dormant since 2011. In recent weeks, Serge Brammertz has reconstituted his teams and resumed investigations.

Former boss and founder of the National Defense Fund, Félicien Kabuga will notably have to answer for his role in supplying the interahamwe militias

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• Rwanda

• International justice