East Africa: Trial of Rwandan Genocide ‘Mastermind’ Kicks Off
One of the last main suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide is on trial at the UN tribunal in The Hague. Félicien Kabuga is charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the slaughter of about 800 000 people – most of them ethnic Tutsis.
Once one of Rwanda’s richest men, he is accused of inciting the killings through a radio station he owned, and of funding and arming the militia that carried them out. At the same time, notes Legalbrief, The Hague-based court is trying former CAR rebel commander Mahamat Said Kani who is accused of torturing opposition supporters as the country spiralled into violence in 2013.
BBC News notes that Kabuga, who’s in his late 80s, has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers had sought to halt proceedings on health grounds. ‘It is the understanding of the chamber that Mr Kabuga is this morning well, but has decided not to attend the hearing either in person or via video link,’ Judge Iain Bonomy said last Wednesday.
Al Jazeera reports that he said ‘the trial must proceed’. Kabuga, who is 87, was arrested in May 2020, in a Paris suburb after 25 years on the run. He is accused of helping create the Interahamwe Hutu militia, the main armed group of the 1994 genocide.
He has been held in detention in The Hague awaiting trial before the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which is completing the work of the disbanded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Prosecutors are expected to call more than 50 witnesses in a trial that could last for years.
Prosecutors told the court that Kabuga’s radio station Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines broadcast genocidal propaganda – and they accuse him of arming the dreaded Interahamwe militia.
‘The charges against Kabuga reflect his status as a wealthy and well-connected insider,’ prosecutor Rashid S Rashid said in his opening statement. CNN reports that he said the case reflects Kabuga’s ‘individual responsibility for serious crimes committed during the 1994 Rwanda genocide’.
Through a statement released by his son on Wednesday, Kabuga said he didn’t trust his lawyer but claimed that the court had denied his requests to pick another one. ‘I am therefore forced to be represented by a lawyer in whom I do not trust and prevented from having access to my property to retain the lawyer of choice,’ the statement says. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
