Court in France yesterday Wednesday May27th rejected a request to release Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga under court supervision.
Kabuga through his lawyer’s had applied for a bail complaining of poor health, saying continued detention ensured he would not abscond.
Kabuga was arrested on May16th in Paris where he had been living for on accusations of financing and arming ethnic Hutu militias that slaughtered over 800,000 Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in Rwanda following charges made by the United Nations Tribunal.
However, he denied the accusations against him calling them lies. He denied having killed Tutsis claiming he was in stead working with them.
“All of this is lies. I have not killed any Tutsis. I was working with them.” Kabuga told court through his interpreter.
He confirmed his identity saying he was born in 1933, rather than 1935 as stated in court documents.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), issued an indictment alleging him as a prime suspect of the genocide.
According to an indictment from The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Kabuga chaired the notorious Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and used it to incite hatred between Hutus and Tutsis.
“He incited the commission of genocide through broadcasts that expressly identified persons as Tutsis, provided their locations, described them as the enemy, and called for their elimination”. RTLM alleges.
An indictment further states that Kabuga connived with others to create and fund a militia in the capital, Kigali, with the aim of stirring up ethnic hatred and committing genocide against Tutsis.
When Paris Court of Appeal approves Kabuga’s extradition, he will be handed over to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
Kabuga’s case would be tried in neighbouring Tanzania. However, due to the fears of corina virus pandemic, there are proposals by persecutors to the mechanism to try the case at The Hague in the Netherlands.
