A man thought to be the main financier for the systematic genocide of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan men, women, and children has been arrested in France.
Felicien Kabuga, 84, was apprehended Saturday morning outside of Paris in Asnieres-sur-Seine, where he was living under a false identity. Kabuga was Rwanda’s most wanted person and had a $5 million bounty on his head. He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 on seven counts of genocide and a slew of other charges.
Kabuga is accused of funding one of the worst genocides in history, which killed an estimated 800,000 Rwandans in 1994, most of whom were part of the Tutsi ethnic group. He allegedly paid Hutu militias to carry out the slaughter and founded Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, which broadcast messages across the country encouraging people to go out and butcher Tutsis.
Rwandan genocide criminal, 84-year-old Felicien Kabuga has been arrested in Paris, France after being at large and wanted for 26 years.
He funded the 1994 Rwandan Genocide which led to the deaths of 1 million people in 100 days. pic.twitter.com/nzThq91puI
— Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) May 16, 2020
French prosecutors said he was living in an apartment with his children, who were complicit in shielding him from justice. The chief prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, Serge Brammertz, said the arrest was “a sophisticated, coordinated operation with simultaneous searches across a number of locations.”
“For international justice, Kabuga’s arrest demonstrates that we can succeed when we have the international community’s support,” Brammertz said in a statement. Kabuga is set to be transferred to the custody of the IRMCT, where he will stand trial for the charges.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the State Department for comment.
