First modification:
In the accusation, the Prosecutor’s Office highlighted that Félicien Kabuga gave “financial, material, logistical and moral” support to Hutu gangs who participated in the genocide, in addition to inciting hatred and violence against the Tutsis.
87-year-old Rwandan businessman Félicien Kabuga played a “vital role” and made a “substantial contribution” to the financing of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. This was what the Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism of Criminal Courts, MTPI, assured during the beginning of the trial that took place this Thursday, September 29, in The Hague.
Kabuga, who did not attend the court to hear the accusation, is accused of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide, as well as persecution, extermination and murder for his alleged role in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of members of the ethnic group. Tutsi in 1994.
The Prosecutor’s Office considers that the businessman conspired and incited the Tutsi extermination attempt by having acquired “imported weapons and distributed (to Hutu groups) to attack” members of the Tutsi ethnic group or anyone suspected of supporting them.
Kabuga would have provided logistical, financial, material and moral support to the Interahamwe gangs, who participated in the attacks and murders at roadblocks and in their homes in various regions of the country.
However, his role does not end there. The businessman “founded and directed” the radio station RTLM, a station that, according to the accusing party, during the hundred days that the genocide lasted, promoted hatred and violence against the Tutsis.
Prosecutor Rashid S. Rashid was in charge of reading the first part of the accusation against Kabuga and stated that the trial seeks to hold him responsible “for his substantial and intentional contribution” to the massacre. At the time, he stressed that “there are no reasonable grounds for anyone to dispute that there was a campaign to totally or at least partially destroy the Tutsis of Rwanda.”
The trial is a “debt” to the survivors of the extermination attempt
Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor of the Mechanism, assured that “it is still a very important trial. They should ask this question to the survivors and victims who have waited 28 years for this process to begin.
Kabuga is one of the latest accused genocide fugitives to come to justice. “It is the last big case that we are prosecuting ourselves. Having said that, there are more than 1,200 outstanding arrest warrants in Kigali related to other genocides,” the official added.
Regarding the businessman’s absence at the beginning of the process, Brammertz affirmed that it was a strategic decision since there was “absolutely no medical reason why he did not attend.” In turn, defense lawyers unsuccessfully argued that he was not fit to stand trial.
However, it is about a man who, according to the medical team, is in a fragile health condition, so the trial will last two hours a day. The first evidence in the case is expected to be heard next week.
At least 800,000 people were killed in the 100-day genocide in Rwanda.
The genocide began on April 6, 1994 after a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down and crashed in Kigali. The leader of the Hutu ethnic group lost his life and the Tutsi minority was blamed for being responsible for the incident. It was then that extremist gangs began the massacre.
The United Nations estimates that during the period of the genocide, at least 800,000 people were killed, and prosecutor Rashid said at Thursday’s hearing that during those 100 days, “hundreds of people were victims of rape and sexual assault.”
Likewise, the accusation of the Prosecutor’s Office details that Kabuga “was widely known as one of the richest men in Rwanda” and thanks to this he played “a vital role in financing” the events without the need to “wield a rifle or a machete”.
The businessman was on the run for 26 years and was arrested in 2020 near Paris by the French authorities. He was later transferred to the custody of the Mechanism in its branch in The Hague, although it is up to him to be tried in the Arusha branch in Tanzania. However, he could not be transferred there due to his poor health.
The MTPI is charged with completing the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was dissolved in 2015.
With EFE and AP
