The Chief Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) Serge Brammertz on Tuesday said in Kigali that the financier of genocide in Rwanda Felicien Kabuga who was arrested in May this year by French Police after 26 years on the run will be transferred to the UN tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania before the end of the year.
Speaking to reporters in Kigali, Mr Brammertz said the French justice was expected to decide on when the 84-years-old suspect will be transferred to IRMCT’s seat in Arusha.
Kabuga has long been one of the world’s most wanted fugitives. The United States State Department offered a reward of $5 million for any information leading to his arrest. After playing hide-and-seek with police in several different countries to avoid his many charges, he was finally arrested on May 16, in Asnières-sur-Seine, a Paris suburb.
He wanted to be tried in France, but French courts initially decided to transfer him to Tanzania, to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) on June 3. Kabuga is accused of being the financier of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, — a period of 100 days in which Hutu extremists killed nearly 1 million people, mostly Tutsi.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) charged Kabuga in 1997 on seven counts including genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, as well as crimes committed in Rwanda between April 6 to July 17, 1994.
According to IRMCT Chief Prosecutor, other charges facing Kabuga include presiding over the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines [RTLM], which broadcast calls for the murder of all Tutsis after the
assassination of former President Juvenal Habyarimana.
RTLM played a fundamental role in the genocide
He also headed the National Defense Fund [FDN] which collected ‘funds’ to finance the logistics and the weapons of the militia and was said to have ‘ordered the employees of his company (…) to import a significant number of machetes to Rwanda in 1993,’ before having them
distributed to the Interahamwe in April of 1994.
The purpose of the visit by IRMCT chief prosecutor also aims at discussing matters of mutual benefits and committed to continue enhancing cooperation, the statement issued by the National Public
Prosecution Authority(NPPA) said.
IRMCT took over from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, after the two UN tribunals closed shop a few years ago.
The court, which was established to try masterminds of the Genocide against the Tutsi, is still looking for notorious officer of the defeated Rwandan Armed forces Ex-FAR, Maj. Protais Mpiranya.
Brammertz said that, to facilitate the UN tribunal’s readiness to handle Kabuga’s case, he had increased the number of prosecutors and investigators looking into his file – in Rwanda – to more than 15.
“We have to wait for Kabuga to be transferred and this will take some time; it could be in September or October,” he said.
CU/abj/APA