Rwanda Genocide: Suspected financier, Kabuga, nabbed in France after 26 years

The suspected financier of the Rwandan Genocide that led to the killing of about 800,000 people, Felicien Kabuga, was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 26 years on the run.

Recall that Rwanda’s two main ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis, who have historically had an antagonistic relationship fought a civil war in the early 1990s.

Kabuga, who is a Hutu businessman, is accused of funding the militias that massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and their moderate Hutu allies over a span of 100 days in 1994.

He was indicted in 1997 on seven criminal counts including genocide, complicity in genocide and incitement to commit genocide, all in relation to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, according to the UN-established International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).

The French justice ministry said that the 84-year-old, who is Rwanda’s most-wanted man, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine.

“Since 1994, Felicien Kabuga, known to have been the financier of Rwanda genocide, had with impunity stayed in Germany, Belgium, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, or Switzerland,” the ministry added.

“The arrest of Félicien Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even twenty-six years after their crimes,” the IRMCT’s Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.

His arrest “is an important step towards justice for hundreds of thousands of genocide victims...survivors can hope to see justice and suspects cannot expect to escape accountability,” Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

Further reports revealed that two other Rwandan genocide suspects, Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya, are still being pursued by international justice.

Kabuga's arrest was a joint effort which involved law enforcement agencies in France and other countries including the United States, Rwanda, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and others.

Reuters