Rwanda genocide suspect Kabuga dead

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A suspect in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, accused of masterminding a notorious radio station that urged on the brutal massacres, died Saturday, according to the international court in The Hague where he had faced trial.

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Felicien Kabuga, who was in his 90s, died in hospital earlier Saturday, said the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in a statement.

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Once one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives, Kabuga was often referred to as the man who financed the massacre of some 800,000 people in Rwanda between April and June 1994.

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Kabuga was arrested in Paris in 2020 after years in hiding using a succession of false passports and aided by a network of former Rwandan allies.

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In July 1994, he sought refuge in Switzerland but was thrown out a month later.

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He then flew to Kinshasa and later moved to Kenya, managing to avoid three arrest attempts by police.

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The United States offered a reward of $5 million in 2002 for information leading to his arrest and funded a media campaign in Kenya that splashed his photo across the country.

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After being eventually caught in Paris, he was transferred to The Hague and charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, as well as crimes against humanity including extermination and murder.

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Prosecutors accused Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s richest men, of being the driving force behind Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which urged ethnic Hutus to kill Tutsis with machetes.

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He was also accused of “distributing machetes” to genocidal groups, and ordering them to kill Tutsis.

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His defence lawyers countered that he was just a businessman with a minimal role at RTLM, which described Tutsis as “cockroaches” that must be exterminated.

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They also denied that he supplied machetes and supported the murderous Interahamwe Hutu militia.

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Kabuga pleaded not guilty.

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The trial in The Hague was closely watched in Rwanda, but not by Kabuga himself, who declined to attend and did not even watch by videolink.

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In 2023, judges halted the trial, deeming the wheelchair-bound Kabuga “unfit to participate meaningfully” in proceedings, but he was ordered to remain detained awaiting provisional release.

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At the time of his death, he was awaiting release to a country willing to take him.

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The court’s presiding judge Graciela Gatti Santana has ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances of Kabuga’s death.

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