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ONE OF THE most wanted fugitives in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide has been arrested in Paris, authorities said today.
Felicien Kabuga, who had a £4 million (€4.4 million) bounty on his head, had been accused of equipping militias in the genocide that killed more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them.
Kabuga (84) was arrested as a result of a joint investigation with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals office of the prosecutor, French authorities said.
UNIRMCT / Twitter#IRMCT fugitive Félicien Kabuga was arrested today in Paris, France. For further information about the arrest, including Prosecutor Brammertz' statement: https://t.co/dg3fgz84CG pic.twitter.com/I09J6uUQ52
— UNIRMCT (@unirmct) May 16, 2020
He had been living in Paris under an assumed name, the appeals court’s prosecutor’s office said.
The UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted Kabuga in 1997 on charges related to conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution and extermination.
Rwandan prosecutors have said financial documents found in the capital, Kigali, after the genocide, indicated that Kabuga used his companies to import vast quantities of machetes that were used to slaughter people.
The wealthy businessman was also accused of establishing the station Radio Television Mille Collines, that broadcast vicious propaganda against the ethnic Tutsi, as well as training and equipping the Interahamwe militia that led the killing spree.
Kabuga was close to former president Juvenal Habyarimana, whose death when his plane was shot down over Kigali sparked the 100-day genocide.
Kabuga’s daughter married Habyarimana’s son.
Kabuga is expected to be transferred to the custody of the UN mechanism, where he will stand trial.
“The arrest of Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even 26 years after their crimes,” the mechanism’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, said in a statement.
Officials in Rwanda said the East African nation will continue to collaborate with the UN mechanism to ensure that justice is served.
According to Rwandan prosecutors, other top fugitives still at large include Protais Mpiranya, the former commandant of the Presidential Guards, and former defence minister Augustin Bizimana.
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Great News
@Dominick Lodola: always great to see this. Like how Mossad wouldn’t let the Nasi hierarchy retire into the sunset.
No punishment would be good enough.
@Brian Kearns: he should have moved to Ireland
The Best News. He can now be prosecuted and answer for his horrific acts
UN Were a disgrace in that also, and the nuns who participated in the slaughter
@Dougal67: Yes, and closer to home with the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. A total and utter failure on the part of the UN to protect lives there too. Simply let the Serbs carry it out, and looked the other way.
@Dougal67: Fr André Sibomana was a hero in Rwanda but that might suit your church bashing agenda
@Wheresmyjumper: I’d say he was nun bashing and not church bashing. Take offence much?
@David McGuigan: how do you know what he meant?
@Wheresmyjumper: Funny I mentioned UN first, but u jumped on the Church thing first like all sheep?? Maybe truth hurts too much, u do know it’s a religious persons kriptonite
Here’s the link for “your church workers” http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15653352/ns/world_news-africa/t/catholic-nun-convicted-rwandan-genocide/
@Wheresmyjumper: Here’s another link for “your pope” apologising for priests handing over people for slaughter!!!
@Dougal67: you must be really cool, while i’m just a lame sheep
@Dougal67: i always find that people who say “lad” are gowls
@Wheresmyjumper: I always find people who say “gowls” are 12
@Wheresmyjumper: Funny how you never replied to the 2 links I mentioned? Just deflection and bury head in sand and repeat? What a sad bunch
@Dougal67: of course they have done horrible things but they have some positive points in the balance sheet too
@Wheresmyjumper: Yes but that does not suit your “priest is hero” comment? Which was your retort to the nuns, whatever good they allegedly do they will never ever u do the evil they’ve imposed on the world, your priest saved a few, but his colleagues opened the gates to allow innocents to be chopped up? But never mind there’s a few good ones out there???????????????????
I’d implore anyone to watch Hotel Rwanda and see how gruesome and utterly disgusting this genocide was. Majority of Tutsis killed were hacked to death with blunt machetes. An unbelievable atrocity. And….it was only in the 90s
@Donnacha Bhoicaire:
It was pure horrific , how can people carry out such barbaric acts on each other.
@Donnacha Bhoicaire: So evil. Glad they tracked him down.
@Donnacha Bhoicaire: It’s worth having a look at this article from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/17/hotel-rwanda-hollywood-ending
It’s about Paul Rusesabagina of Hotel Rwanda fame and how the movie may have stretched the truth a little about his own involvement. It’s not a comment on the atrocities that were committed – which were inarguably horrific – just about his own personal involvement.
Send him back to Rwanda!
Got away with it for 23 years
He’s 84.
Zero justice
Drop into a lake .
have your say