Félicien Kabuga, as soon as one of the needed fugitives from justice with a $5 million bounty on his head, died in UN medical services in The Hague on 16 Might 2026. The loss of life of the as soon as highly effective businessman won’t be mourned in his residence nation of Rwanda the place his bloody legacy nonetheless resonates within the lives of victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide in opposition to the Tutsi.
Kabuga was born on 19 July 1935 within the north east prefecture of Byumba, (Muniga secteur, Mukarange commune). Rwanda was then beneath Belgian colonial rule. The shortage of any actual fundamental infrastructure – roads, airports, banks, water, media, hospitals, secondary faculties/universities – meant a lot of the 95% of inhabitants relied on self-sufficient farming to feed themselves and their households – together with Kabuga’s mother and father, Pierre Gasimba and Tibamwenda, (born Mugina).
Not a lot is understood of Kabuga’s education, however it’s seemingly he attended major faculty and given the issue in attending secondary faculty – such institutions had been few and much between and had a really fundamental stage – his entrepreneurial talent in making a swift revenue from promoting cigarettes and used garments within the native markets and villages quickly took over his life. He moved to the capital Kigali and commenced to broaden his enterprise dealing. Inside just a few years he had based firms similar to ETS Kabuga – that dealt in petroleum merchandise, in addition to increasing his enterprise portfolio into working tea plantations, flour milling, property letting and actual property, in addition to a extremely productive transport and provider enterprise.
He married Joséphine Mukazitoni, who was 6 years youthful than him (born in January 1942), and was additionally from Byumba. Within the coming years that they had 11 youngsters: 3 sons – Gilbert Habumukiza, Donatien Nsmyumuremye, Harmless Twagirumukiza) and eight daughters – Félicité Mukademali, Françoise Mukanziza, Winnie Musabayezu, Pauline Musanabera, Claudine Marie Twagirihirwe (Cherry), Bernadette Uwamariya, Angélique Uwihirwe, Séraphine Uwimana.
After his coup in 1973, which eradicated the previous president Gregoire Kayibanda and a whole lot of his senior army, political and administrative aids, President Juvenal Habyarimana put in his personal one-party (MRND) state on Rwanda. ‘Preferment’ in any realm of life – training, well being, administration, enterprise, the army and inside the church buildings was doable solely with the ‘blessing’ of the ‘Akazu’ or shut household round Agathe Kanziga, the presidents’ spouse. For Kabuga, future prosperity in such a state was completely depending on unifying himself personally, politically and financially with Akazu.
Two of Kabuga’s 11 youngsters married into President Habyarimana’s household. In 1993 his daughter Bernadette Uwamariya was ‘persuaded’ to marry Habyarimana’s playboy son Jean-Pierre, a person given to a flamboyant way of life of partying, drink, fairly women and doubtful enterprise practices. One 12 months after the genocide in 1995, when hopes had been nonetheless excessive that the now exiled Hutu genocidal regime would launch a profitable invasion of Rwanda, Kabuga’s daughter Françoise Mukanziza married Habyarimana’s son Leon in Nairobi on 17 August 1995, the place the 2 households had been now dwelling in opulent exile. Added to those ties, one other daughter of Habyarimana, Jeanne, married Alphonse Ntilivamunda – the brother of Francois Ngirabatware who was married to Kabuga’s daughter Claudine (Cherry).
Politically, Kabuga allied himself as a powerful supporter of the President’s political celebration, MRND. With its regionalist and ethnicist agenda, MRND discovered itself from 1991 having to battle with a brand new political panorama of multiparty politics and an on-going civil warfare. Kabuga grew to become a significant ‘cog’ in supporting Habyarimana politically and financially because the media and youth had been radicalised and weaponised with a purpose to retain energy. Kabuga often attended giant MRND public rallies alongside the president and different political backers of the celebration, enthusing publicly on the necessity for unity behind Habyarimana. This was regardless of the rising financial, political, social and ethnic divisions within the nation with genocidal assaults in opposition to the Tutsi minority going down from October 1990.
Kabuga grew to become a high-profile backer of the MRND’s youth militia, the Interahamwe. What began out innocently sufficient as a football-based Kigali youth group beneath the MRND banner, was quickly taken over by extremists within the celebration and used for much extra sinister actions – violent, racist and politically harmful assaults concentrating on MRND’s political opponents – in addition to Tutsi who had been accused of helping the RPF. He gave supplies to a tailoring workshop in Remera, Kigali, owned by a enterprise girl named Charlotte Nyiransengimana, the place the interahamwe’s uniforms had been made.
In response to a report within the journal Nyabarongo (13th March 1993), in autumn 1992 there had been a gathering at President Habyarimana’s residence in Kanombe, Kigali, by which Akazu personalities gathered to talk about the longer term. Kabuga and his spouse Josephine joined regime hardliners together with Colonels Laurent Serubuga, Anatole Nsengiyumva and Theoneste Bagosora, the president’s brother Seraphin Bararengana, Protais Zigiranyirazo (Z), Seraphin Rwabukumba and Joseph Nzirorera. The attendees had been handled to champagne and impungure canapes (beans combined with corn). Speeches had been made that known as for pressing motion to assist retain their wealth and energy gathered throughout 20 years of corruption and misrule.
In addition to offering materials and political help for the interahamwe, Kabuga’s monetary clout performed a significant function in establishing what grew to become often called Hutu hate radio – Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, Société Anonyme (RTLM, SA). In Autumn 1992, Ferdinand Nahimana had approached Kabuga with an thought for a non-public radio station. The very fact he noticed Kabuga as a pure ally of the undertaking was no coincidence – right here was a person who couldn’t simply inject vital funds to get the undertaking off the bottom, however was carefully linked to the Habyarimana/Akazu, had in depth contacts inside the regime and, most significantly, was seen as being extremely sympathetic to the ‘Hutu energy’ ideology, as it will later turn into. On 8 April 1993 at Village Urugwiro – the workplace of the President – RTLM’s founding statutes had been signed and printed. Kabuga was named as President of RTLM and Chairman of its initiative/steering committee. On 17 June Kabuga wrote to the minister of data to tell him of the creation of RTLM.
Kabuga used his affect in pushing MRND allies to enroll and purchase shares within the non-public radio station. A gathering at Kigali’s Amahoro Lodge raised a number of million Rwandan francs with attendees handled to speeches by Kabuga and different members of the ‘initiative committee’. Main shareholders in RTLM included Habyarimana, who invested a million Rwandan francs within the new firm, Kabuga (500,000 RWF), Joseph Nzirorera (500,000 RWF), Seraphin Rwabukumba, (500,000 RWF) and Col. Bagosora (250,000 RWF). As president of the station, Kabuga twice led RTLM delegations to fulfill the Minister of Data Faustin Rucogoza after the radio station was accused of spreading malicious lies on air and inciting ethnic violence – this in a rustic that by late 1993 was already teetering on the sting of meltdown with day by day outrages on the streets. Simply weeks earlier than the genocide, on 10 February, within the second such assembly, Kabuga denounced any try by Rucogoza to curtail RTLM’s ‘freedom of speech’ that was marked by a day by day food plan of anti-Tutsi, anti-opposition rhetoric bordering on direct calls to violence. In a direct confrontation with the minister, Kabuga intimated that RTLM would ‘proceed to present time to anybody who would come to testify about Tutsi tips and their Hutu accomplices.’
Two months afterward the 7th April when the genocide was unleased, Rucogoza, his spouse and two younger youngsters had been among the many first to be focused by the killers; they had been kidnapped, shot and hacked to loss of life.
Kabuga’s property portfolio continued to develop within the Nineteen Nineties. In addition to the Byumba flour mill, he acquired an in depth actual property complicated within the Muhima suburb of Kigali, which housed a number of public establishments together with some ministries, the Gikondo warehouses (later transformed into a jail), a palatial residence in Remera, one other giant residence with a far-reaching compound in Kimironko and a tea plantation protecting greater than 300 hectares. At his Muhima and Kimironko buildings in Kigali, weapons had been saved and coaching given to teams of Interahamwe, who used the buildings and compounds as native headquarters. Each locations would play an necessary function within the genocide.
Kabuga additionally had an eye fixed on his worldwide enterprise at a time of monetary meltdown in Rwanda because the nation descended into social, political and financial damage throughout 1993. He was aided by having his son-in-law, Fabien Singaye (married to his daughter Pauline Musanabera), working on the Rwandan embassy in Bern which was used not simply as an intelligence facility within the coronary heart of Europe however as an necessary financial useful resource for the businessman.
Genocide
On 6 April 1994, Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down because it got here into land in Kigali, killing the president, his safety chief Elie Sagatwa and the top of the army Deogratias Nsabimana. The genocide that had been deliberate for and organised was set in movement in all its horror and ferocity. Roadblocks had been arrange, opposition politicians swiftly murdered and a brand new Hutu extremist interim regime chosen and put in by Colonel Theoneste Bagosora in what was, in impact, a coup d’etat. The target was to unite the disparate Hutu events in opposition to one ‘enemy’ – the Tutsi – whereas taking the chance of the genocide and rekindled civil warfare in opposition to the RPF for the extremists to kill these they noticed as ‘reasonable’ Hutu opponents. Witnesses famous Kabuga arrived at his Muhima property in Kigali on 7th April already dressed within the interahamwe ‘kitenge’ uniform. Teams of interahamwe additionally arrived in vans owned by the businessman. Tutsi who had additionally been delivered to the positioning had been later taken away and murdered after Kabuga left. Kabuga’s giant residence, within the unique Kimironko space of town, was utilized by interahamwe as a base for operations through the genocide. Right here, a bunch often called ‘Kabuga’s interahamwe’ that numbered round fifty, spent the next three months till the autumn of town killing any Tutsi they may discover. Within the weeks and months earlier than the genocide started spent inside Kabuga’s Kimironko compound, that they had been clothed, armed and educated/indoctrinated to kill Tutsi. Throughout 1993, neighbours who entered the property had famous interahamwe had constructed up an in depth stockpile of weapons – together with rifles, grenades, golf equipment and machetes. As with these militia at Muhima, most of those killers got here from Kabuga’s residence area in Byumba. Kabuga was additionally identified to help different native interahamwe teams, who manned a roadblock solely few hundred metres away and often called ‘Groupement.’ Certainly, the roadblock right here with Kabuga’s interahamwe was arrange even earlier than the genocide was set in movement on 7 April. It was identified to be essentially the most harmful and harmful roadblock within the space. Kabuga-supported Interahamwe, from his residence commune in Byumba, additionally took half in mass slaughter at a close-by church and faculty the place native Tutsi had sought refuge.
It grew to become clear inside days that whereas the genocide was massively profitable – tens of hundreds of Tutsi had been murdered within the first days alone – the renewed civil warfare in opposition to the RPF was going badly for the brand new genocidal interim regime. Its politicians had fled from Kigali to the safer haven of the central Rwandan city of Gitarama inside days of the beginning of the genocide. There was a determined have to arm and practice new recruits for ‘civil defence’ forces – a time period used for Hutu militia such because the interahamwe.
On 25 April Kabuga organised a gathering within the north west city of Gisenyi to create the ‘Fonds de Défense Nationwide’ – Nationwide Defence Fund. Its objective was to reprovision the militias for the genocide. Monies raised had been deposited within the Banque Commerciale Populaire de Rwanda. In a letter dated 25 April to Prime Minister Kambanda, Kabuga famous this new fund was to ‘struggle the enemy and its accomplices,’ and to ‘make conventional weapons (bows and arrows, spears, swords…) obtainable’ in giant portions for Rwandan youths to make use of. The Gisenyi occasion raised three million Rwandan Francs, and Kabuga urged Kambanda to make this instance one which ought to be adopted nationally. It was apparent that such ‘conventional weapons’ weren’t going for use within the civil warfare in opposition to the RPF – the machetes, hoes and axes that had been to be purchased and given to the interahamwe militia had just one goal use – the genocide of Tutsi civilians. Because the later ICTR judgment in opposition to two political leaders of Kambanda’s regime discovered: ‘Kabuga made it clear in his letter to the Interim Authorities that he supposed to make use of the fund to buy conventional weapons for the army, militiamen, and civilians. In these circumstances, the one affordable conclusion is that Kabuga and the assailants who bodily perpetrated the killings possessed the intent to destroy, in complete or in a considerable half, the Tutsi group’. [ICTR judgment, The Prosecutor v. Édouard Karemera and Matthieu Ngirumpatse, Case No. ICTR-98-44-T, 2 February 2012, para. 1646].
From April – June, Kabuga took half in fundraising conferences, together with at Gisenyi’s Meridien resort – the place he and Joseph Nzirorera had rooms – and on the Umuganda stadium. The conferences introduced collectively businessmen, politicians and rich people. It was, Kabuga advised them, in all their pursuits to present generously to pay for weapons and an expanded Interahamwe. Ought to Kigali fall to the RPF, they might all lose substantial property and financial institution belongings. The way in which to cease a ‘Tutsi’ takeover was to struggle not simply the enemy from overseas (the RPF was characterised as a ‘Ugandan’ military) however the ‘enemy’ of their midst – native civilian Tutsi. The Tutsi wanted to be eradicated ‘at their roots’.
In early June, a gathering on the Meridien Lodge came about to pick a committee to progress the Civil Defence fund. Kabuga was elected because the committee’s president. Additionally current had been Joseph Nzirorera, carrying his interahamwe uniform, MRND chief Mathieu Ngirumpatse, the minister of planning Augustin Ngirabatware and Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva, the top of the army within the city and the lead participant in organising the genocide within the locality.
The previous prefect of Gisenyi advised investigators:
‘Once I arrived on the Meridien resort, I noticed Kabuga within the hallway resulting in the assembly corridor. We had a non-public dialog that developed right into a dispute by which I requested him if he was not but drained from all this killing which had by no means occurred in Rwanda earlier than. And I advised him all this is able to not result in any good end result for the nation. He replied telling me that it had occurred earlier than, accusing me of being illiterate of the historical past of my nation. He added that every one Tutsis have to be killed; he mentioned that if we don’t kill them, they are going to kill us.’
The Prefect protested was in useless. He left the assembly after Colonel Nsengiyumva advised him he was only a civilian and these issues had nothing to do with him; his views had been undesirable and unneeded.
In its investigation into one of many 5 leaders of the interahamwe in Gisenyi, the businessman Omar Serushago, the ICTR discovered that Kabuga was complicit in serving to to attract up lists of names that had been then handed to the interahamwe for them to eradicate: ‘Between Might and June 1994, Anatole Nsengiyumva, Felicien Kabuga, Joseph Nzirorera, secretary normal of the MRND, and Juvénal Uwilingiyimana, Director of the workplace Rwandais du Tourisme et des Parcs Nationaux, held a gathering in Gisenyi. Through the assembly, Joseph Nzirorera and Juvenal Uwilingiyimana took notice of the names of the Tutsi and reasonable Hutu who had come from different prefectures. They drew up a listing of individuals to eradicate which they handed over to the militiamen. [ICTR, Prosecutor against Omar Serushago, case number ICTR-98-39-I, 14 December 1998, Para 5.17].
Whereas conferences to lift funds had been underway, so was motion to show the cash into weapons that may very well be used on the bottom – regardless of a UN arms embargo being in place. Across the begin of June, a bunch of interahamwe from Gisenyi had been ordered to carry again an arms cargo that had been delivered to Goma airport – simply throughout the border in Zaire. A witness defined to ICTR investigators:
‘Three vans belonging to Kabuga [were] ready on the airport. We began loading the packing containers from the airplane to the vans and the buses. We had been round 80 males and we labored till 3 o'clock within the morning. I estimate the variety of packing containers loaded into the vans and the buses at round 400 packing containers, among the packing containers had been very heavy and wanted 5 males to hold them whereas different packing containers didn’t want greater than two males. I knew the vans belonged to Kabuga as a result of his identify was written on the motive force’s door of every truck. Once we completed loading the weapons into the vans and the buses we went again to Gisenyi. The buses stopped on the Meridian Lodge and the Prefecture workplace whereas the vans had been instructed to proceed to Gisenyi Navy camp. My bus was stopped on the Meridian Lodge and we waited there till the morning. At round 0800 hrs. Kabuga got here to the place the buses had been and checked among the packing containers. Every of the packing containers had a label with the next written on it: ‘import Filicien (sic) Kabuga by way of Mombassa.’ Following Kabuga’s arrival we began distributing the weapons. A few of the packing containers had 10 AK47 rifles whereas different packing containers had been stuffed with ammunition solely. The weapons got to the interahamwe and civil defence.’
On 17 June, RTLM issued a nationwide name for extra funding for the militia, naming Kabuga for example of a beneficiant donor, in addition to different Gisenyi businessmen; The radio dj famous such private, beneficiant effort to ‘save our nation’ … in any case ‘your cash could be of no use to you in case your nation is taken by foreigners’ (i.e. Tutsi). Enterprise folks wanted to be taught from Kabuga and provides funds to help the military and radio stations, and even to pay for ‘white’ mercenaries.
As June turned to July, and the French intervention pressure Operation Turquoise did not be the saviour of the extremists because it had been to Habyarimana’s regime within the early Nineteen Nineties, regime politicians, enterprise folks, army and certainly RTLM radio all moved north to Gisenyi for security. Nevertheless, inside weeks, as soon as the RPF took Kigali and moved to take the north west, the genocidaire fled, together with a whole lot of hundreds of largely Hutu refugees, into neighbouring states – notably refugee camps simply contained in the Rwanda-Zaire border. For the genocidal regime leaders and supporters, the fast want was sanctuary for themselves, their households and the money reserves that they had constructed up through the heyday of Akazu’s energy. Regardless of his ‘unwavering’ help for the regime in its on-going genocide and civil warfare, Kabuga had used the summer time to make sure an efficient exit technique ought to it’s essential. On 6 June, with the killing in full circulation, the businessman utilized for visas for himself, his spouse and 7 grownup youngsters on the Swiss embassy in Kinshasha, in neighbouring Zaire (now DRC). Three days later these had been issued. It was alleged Alexandre Hunziker, head of the Swiss immigration workplace and an in depth private good friend of Kabuga’s son-in-law Fabien Singaye who labored on the Rwandan embassy in Bern, had personally issued the visa and didn’t cross on an entry ban to frame police. On 22 July Kabuga arrived in Switzerland along with his household.Two weeks later, a lawsuit was issued in Paris that accused Kabuga of genocide. He reacted by making use of for asylum in Switzerland.
Solely at this level, did Swiss justice and international ministries, now alerted to his presence, order Kabuga and his household as persona non grata to return to Kinshasa – even being ready to pay his air fare of $23,000 with a purpose to get swiftly rid themselves of this most undesirable particular person. On 18 August Kabuga arrived again Kinshasa – alongside along with his funds which he had been additionally allowed to depart with. Remarkably, regardless of information of his function with RTLM and the militias, no try was made to arrest/query him by the Swiss authorities. It was the primary of many missed alternatives to carry him to justice.
Again in Kinshasa in Autumn 1994, Kabuga moved to the luxurious preliminary security of the Nairobi suburbs the place Akazu personalities arrange of their post-genocide retirement villas and homes, funded with their Rwandan ‘earnings’. Taking over residence within the unique Hurlingham district the place he owned property, Kabuga was capable of proceed his African enterprise operations whereas collaborating within the fundraising actions aimed toward enabling the Rwandan military (FAR) and militias, now camped inside Zaire, to mount an offensive to retake Kigali. For the subsequent two years Kabuga, his son-in-law Augustin Ngirabatware, Agathe Kanziga, Z, military chiefs similar to Augustin Bizimungu and Laurent Serubuga, former prefects like Tharcisse Renzaho and Charles Nzabagerageza, and extremist media such because the Kangura journal of Hassan Ngese all benefitted from Kenya’s – and its president Daniel Arap Moi’s – heat welcome.
Moi, a longtime good friend of Agathe and her lifeless husband, is alleged to have been additional sweetened in his willingness to help the genocidaire of their justice-free retirement by a present of 10 million Kenyan shillings ($171,000) from Kabuga. One 12 months on from the genocide, because the excavation of mass burial pits and bloodbath websites continued all through Rwanda, Agathe’s son Leon celebrated his lavish wedding ceremony to Kabuga’s daughter Francoise on 17 August 1995. The event, with 350 invited friends, price round half one million {dollars} – paid for by the Kenyan MP and one-time presidential hopeful Kenneth Matiba.
Two years after the genocide the political and judicial indifference of the worldwide neighborhood was already noticeable. In November 1994 the UN had voted by means of the institution of a particular tribunal to guage these held most chargeable for the genocide that the world had watched and allowed to occur. But these identical genocidaire whose names had been extensively identified and publicly named – similar to Kabuga – continued to take pleasure in freedom and impunity. Furthermore, they had been allowed to journey with out hindrance, shopping for hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of recent weaponry for his or her former regime army and militia who had been camped on the Rwandan border, readying for an invasion. That this invasion in 1995/6 by no means occurred – and a relaunch the genocide – was due to not worldwide sanctions or a proactive response from the UN however the sheer corruption and incompetence of the FAR management. As the brand new Rwandan authorities consultant plaintively advised the UN Safety Council two years after the beginning of the genocide:
‘These chargeable for the genocide in Rwanda and their militias take pleasure in refugee standing, when they’re truly armed and main an armed group. The Authorities of Rwanda wish to encourage nationwide reconciliation. However what which means can reconciliation have if it takes place between those that survived the genocide and its perpetrators, when the latter are within the means of rearming themselves to hold out different massacres.’
Kabuga was named as one of many Akazu continually travelling to/from Kenya with a purpose to finalise arms offers and achieve political help for the invasion, with no try made to arrest him. In 1996 the Rwandan authorities forestalled any invasion by launching its personal counter invasion of Zaire. In the meantime, the primary arrests by the UN tribunal lastly got here after strain on Moi and Zaire’s president Mobutu to stop defending the ‘refugees.’ Not like many who had been arrested, Kabuga’s very deep pockets and notable corrupt hyperlinks with high-ranking members of Kenya’s political, safety and police equipment had been to maintain him protected from justice over the approaching years.
On 18 July 1997 UN and Kenyan police had moved to arrest Kabuga and different needed Rwandan genocidaire in Nairobi throughout ‘Operation Naki’. Although profitable with different targets, together with former regime prime minister Jean Kambanda, Kabuga proved elusive. He had been dwelling at a home belonging to the nephew of President Arap Moi, a sure Hosea Kiplagat – and neighbouring one belonging to Moi’s son Gideon. Kabuga additionally stayed at properties he owned within the Karen district, in Nakuru and in Eldoret. When the monitoring workforce got here to arrest Kabuga within the Eldoret residence, all they discovered was a notice from a Kenyan police officer tipping him off. One years later in autumn 1998, Kabuga was noticed in south east Asia, the place arms dealing for the previous genocidal regime was on the agenda. In 2000, Kabuga moved by means of Belgium the place spouse Josephine and a few of his grownup youngsters had relocated.
In response to Farah Stockman, a Boston Globe journalist who investigated the Kabuga file at the moment, the businessman was value round $20 million in belongings and money (round $38 million in 2026). Whereas efforts had been made to freeze Kabuga’s belongings – particularly in France, Belgium and Switzerland – these weren’t carried out in lots of international locations similar to Kenya. Certainly, witnesses reported seeing him being ferried to the airport in a automotive belonging to the top of the Kenyan army.
In 2002, the exasperated US ambassador-at-large for warfare crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, went public in claiming Kabuga had been utilizing ‘authorities infrastructure to keep up his fugitive standing in Kenya.’ As Agathe Kanziga, Seraphin Rwabukumba and even Z selected to maneuver to Europe to flee justice, Kabuga, along with his enterprise empire primarily based in East Africa, felt protected sufficient to remain, utilizing his wealth, relations and trusted native associates to make sure impunity inside Kenyan authorities and safety buildings identified for his or her simply corrupted standing.
On 13 January 2003 a 27-year-old affiliate of Kabuga, Kenyan journalist William Munuhe, was discovered murdered in Nairobi. Munuhe, it appeared, had been tempted by the $5 million bounty the USA had put up for data and had deliberate to tip off the monitoring workforce about Kabuga’s whereabouts. As a substitute, Munuhe’s tortured physique was discovered at his blood-soaked residence with sturdy suspicions that the arrest had failed attributable to one other Kenyan informer. The official police report put Munuhe’s loss of life right down to ‘suicide’.
One other missed alternative to arrest Kabuga got here in Germany, the place he had gone beneath one in all 20 aliases, and a number of other passports he had acquired, to obtain non-public medical remedy for a benign throat tumour. On 7 September 2007 police arrived on the Frankfurt home of his son-in-law, Augustin Ngirabatware. They promptly used an arrest warrant to take him into custody, however failed to go looking his home, the place it later transpired Kabuga was staying on the time. In 2008, African Press Worldwide printed an alleged interview with Kabuga it mentioned had been recorded in Oslo, Norway, the place the genocidaire was staying on the time. Whether or not this interview ever came about is a matter of dispute and by 2009 Kabuga was again in Kenya and being given around the clock safety by a unit related to very senior Kenyan authorities authorities. One in every of this ‘private safety squad’, Michael Seronei, who took secret photos of Kabuga when he was briefly hospitalised, was kidnapped and murdered in early 2009. One other member of the ‘safety workforce’ testified this homicide was completed on Kabuga’s private directions as a result of Seronei threatened his safety. The Kenyan authorities, beneath strain for its rumoured hyperlinks to Kabuga, issued statements saying that the fugitive had left the nation. Nevertheless, this raised extra questions – the place and when had Kabuga been staying in Kenya? when did he depart, and to the place? And if the Kenyan authorities knew he had left the nation, why did they permit this and never arrest him? All such questions went unanswered.
In 2011 the ICTR, which was attributable to shut its doorways inside three years, moved to ‘defend the proof by a particular deposition for a future trial.’ In impact, having witnesses come ahead to present proof that may very well be used later, if Kabuga was ever arrested and stood trial. It was obvious to all that as witnesses aged and in some circumstances had been not capable of give their necessary proof attributable to sickness or loss of life, the case in opposition to Kabuga was weakened. Apparently, Kabuga’s household, whereas sheltering the killer from arrest and dismissing this ICTR motion, audaciously requested for the prosecution proof to be made obtainable to them. The reply was clear – if Kabuga was harmless, let him stand trial and clear himself.
On 3 February 2017, Kabuga’s spouse Josephine Mukazitoni died in Waterloo, Brussels the place she was dwelling. The UN and native police attended the in depth funeral commemorations on 11 February on the Church of St Joseph within the hope that Kabuga would attend, however with no luck. Actually, because it transpired simply three years later, Kabuga was on the time dwelling contentedly in an house solely 150 miles away in northern Paris. The needed genocidaire, now ailing from diabetes in addition to different well being situations, had made France his residence from the early 2010’s – utilizing the alias Antoine Tounga from Congo. He was assisted by a lot of relations: eight lived in southern Paris together with Bernadette Uwamariya, Harmless Twagirumukiza, Gilbert Habumukiza, Jean de Dieu Sibomana, Félicité Mukademali, Félicité Mukademali and Angélique Uwihirwe; Winnie (Winifred) Musabayezu, Claudine Marie Twagirihirwe (Cherry) and Donatien Nshmyumuremye had been in Brussels, and the divorced Séraphine Uwimana together with her two youngsters who had been dwelling in Brockley, London, was a frequent traveller to Belgian with lengthy stopovers in Paris Added to which had been the Habyarimana clan – with Agathe Kanziga dwelling within the prosperous Courcouronnes suburb surrounded by lots of her personal youngsters.
Kabuga’s household moved to guard him with an ever rising ‘circle of belief’ of these allowed to know the place he lived. Nevertheless, what couldn’t be coated up completely was the necessity to talk with one another about his care preparations. It left a possibility for a revigorated UN monitoring workforce to place within the painstaking work analysing phone and financial institution accounts to seek out the break by means of that might lastly result in the killer’s arrest. In summer time 2019 Bernadette made a cost of $10,000 to Beaujon Hospital, situated in Clichy – additionally within the Hauts-de-Seine division close to Asnières. It was to cowl the fee for colon surgical procedure for an aged Congolese man named Antoine Tounga.
Initially of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the UN genocide monitoring workforce made some key breakthroughs on ‘Operation 955’ – the codename for the seize of Kabuga. Engaged on intelligence and monetary particulars, they suspected Kabuga was seemingly hiding in both the UK, Belgium or France the place his youngsters had been situated. They then zeroed this right down to Paris after monitoring the cellphone of these of his youngsters who appeared, for no actual cause, to be spending rising time within the suburb of Asnières the place that they had no obvious cause to be if not taking care of somebody. Evaluation of financial institution accounts discovered the cost for the remedy of ‘Antoine Tounga.’ The DNA of this aged ‘Congolese’ nationwide matched that taken by German police in 2007 from a person handled in Frankfurt who the police now knew to be Kabuga.
At 6.20 on Saturday morning, 16 Might 2020, French police and members of the UN monitoring workforce raided an unremarkable, one mattress, third-floor house on Rue de Révérend Père Christian Gilbert, in a residential quarter of Asnières within the Hauts-de-Seine of Paris. There they discovered Kabuga’s son, Donatien Nshimyumuremyi; and mendacity on a mattress within the subsequent room, the needed genocidaire. Kabuga denied he was Rwandan – insisting he was a Congolese nationwide. Nevertheless, a scar from his 2007 operation in Germany and a swift DNA take a look at disproved his lie and he was taken into custody. The house had been rented out for a number of years beneath the identify of Habumukiza – the identify of one in all Kabuga’s sons. Three different residences belonging to his youngsters had been additionally raided on the identical time. Kabuga was transferred to La Sante jail in Paris whereas extradition proceedings started. The UN Mechanism utilized to France for Kabuga to handed over to them to be tried in The Hague. The COVID outbreak precluded the case going to Arusha in Tanzania, the house of the previous UN Rwandan tribunal.
At Kabuga’s extradition proceedings in Paris, his youngsters who had shielded the genocidaire from justice for thus lengthy, turned out to help him, shouting out ‘Braveness papa!” when he appeared. Amongst them had been his daughter Françoise Mukanziza, married to Léon Habyarimana and dwelling in Paris, son Gilbert Habumukiza and Winnie Musabayezu (who married the secretary-general of interahamwe Eugène Mbarushimana who’s presently beneath investigation by Belgian prosecutors).
In November 2020 regardless of the most effective efforts of his defence legal professionals to delay the inevitable, Kabuga was cleared by French authorities to be transferred to The Hague for trial earlier than the UN Mechanism (UNIRMCT) – the successor to the ICTR. His preliminary look was on 21 November. His legal professionals once more argued that proceedings ought to be suspended attributable to Kabgua’s age and infirmity, and he ought to be launched on bail. This authorized wrangle over whether or not Kabuga was mentally and bodily capable of be tried continued all through 2021.
Lastly, in autumn 2022, greater than two years after his arrest, Felicien Kabuga’s trial started at The Hague, with opening addresses made on the 29 and 30 September by the Prosecution and Defence. Kabuga was charged with genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution on political grounds, extermination, and homicide as crimes in opposition to humanity. Nevertheless, this was a removed from ‘regular’ trial of a needed genocidaire. For a begin, the prosecution was stymied by an settlement {that a} trial, already 28 years within the making, ought to be lowered to extremely restricted hours of proceedings, attributable to considerations about Kabuga’s age and psychological capability to observe what was occurring. It additionally grew to become clear the logistics of getting the trial in The Hague meant many witnesses in Rwanda would wish to journey 1000 kilometres to Arusha the place there have been video convention assets obtainable on the Mechanism constructing. This concerned visas and complicated journey preparations. Then there was the internecine battle inside the Kabuga household/authorized camp over who ought to signify him. His preliminary defence lawyer, Emmanuel Altit, was rejected by Kabuga’s household who needed the controversial American lawyer Peter Robinson appointed. Robinson was beneath investigation for corruption in regard to his actions in a earlier case when he represented Kabuga’s son-in-law, Augustin Ngirabatware. Regardless of Altit providing to face down as Kabuga’s lawyer, he was ordered to stay, given any change would result in but extra delay within the case.
As soon as begun, occasions in courtroom had been exceptionally tough to observe. Kabuga attended in individual on some events, on others he remained within the UN detention services and was current by video hyperlink. Prosecution witnesses, most of the time, had been heard in digicam – solely three of their 24 witnesses had been in public which made a nonsense of the significance of clear proceedings that survivors might observe. As necessary, the open, digital archive that the trial was meant to provide was usually nullified with widescale redaction, deletion and suppression from public view of the massively necessary testimony and statements. Complete days of witness testimony – a lot of it from former interahamwe who had labored with Kabuga – was ‘categorized’ and so not streamed or recorded for public view.
[The complete trial transcripts of the days when the case was active can be accessed here https://rwandajustice4genocide.org.uk/felicien-kabuga-on-trial-at-the-hague-unirmct/#resources]
The beginning-stop nature of the case continued to an ever-slower timetable into January and February 2023. In March, three impartial medical specialists opined that there have been critical doubts about Kabuga’s continued health to face trial. In response to defence lawyer Dov Jacobs, the medical specialists concluded in a report dated December 2022 that Kabuga was affected by vital deficits within the following areas: ‘short-term reminiscence (acquisition and retention); episodic confusion, complicated decision-making; consideration and focus, reasoning and judgment and govt functioning (i.e. doing duties in the fitting order), expressive and receptive communication, in addition to fluctuations in his temper and character change’. The Scottish Presiding Choose Iain Bonomy ordered a keep in additional proceedings whereas new submissions from the defence and prosecution had been heard.
On 6 June, after almost three months of authorized argument, Bonomy issued a judgement discovering that Kabuga was unfit to take part in his trial and was unlikely to ever regain this health sooner or later. Therefore there ought to be an alternate ‘discovering process’ of the information. This was appealed by the defence and on 7 August, the Appeals Chamber instructed the Trial chamber to ‘impose an indefinite keep of proceedings,’ and dismissed the choice for the trial chamber to proceed with a fundamental ‘findings process.’ It instructed that Kabuga ought to be launched as soon as a state may very well be discovered that might have him. The trial of Kabuga, so lengthy awaited, was shelved completely.
The UN prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, who had led the profitable seek for Kabuga, discovered it tough to include his frustration on the enchantment courtroom determination. He famous:
‘I’ve rigorously reviewed the Attraction Chamber’s determination within the Kabuga case. Its determination have to be revered, even when the end result is dissatisfying. This result’s due at the start to Kabuga’s flight from justice for thus a few years. In full information of his actions earlier than and through the 1994 Genocide in opposition to the Tutsi in Rwanda, he refused to face trial earlier than an impartial and neutral worldwide tribunal to reply the costs in opposition to him. As a fugitive, he was harboured by his household and associates, starting in Kenya and ending in France. My ideas are with the victims and survivors of the Genocide. They’ve maintained their religion within the justice course of during the last three many years. I do know that this consequence will likely be distressing and disheartening to them. Having visited Rwanda lately, I heard very clearly how necessary it was that this trial be concluded’.
The difficulty now earlier than the Mechanism was what to do with Kabuga. His Defence workforce had began to establish states the place he may very well be provisionally launched to – which turned out to be France, Belgium and the UK. These three states had been adamant that they might not settle for Kabuga onto their territory. Certainly, the one state the place he was ‘welcome’ was his residence nation – Rwanda. His household and defence workforce vigorously refused to ponder this – complaining Kabuga’s well being was too dangerous to outlive the journey, and if he was returned to Kigali, the change would result in an additional decline in his well being and his household wouldn’t be capable to go to him. Common medical monitoring and occasional tribunal case conferences continued all through 2024-5, with Kabuga all of the whereas benefitting from skilled UN medical care. Makes an attempt by the UN to get the household to pay for the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} the case price had been blocked as successfully as justice had been in courtroom. The very fact UN taxpayers picked up the invoice for Kabuga’s authorized affairs regardless of him being one of many richest people ever to look earlier than it was symptomatic of a world justice system that appeared weighed closely in favour of the rights of the accused and in opposition to the administration of justice.
On Saturday, 16 Might 2026, the UN introduced that 91 year-old Kabuga had died within the jail hospital at its detention centre in The Hague. The information was met in the primary by a deafening media silence. Not like his arrest six years earlier to the day, on 16 Might 2020, which had made world headlines, Kabuga’s loss of life was hardly reported. Newspapers within the UK nearly completely ignored the story. Even in France, residence of lots of the remaining genocidaire, it was only a passing notice for many editors. The UN instantly introduced an inquiry into Kabuga’s demise as is the case with all deaths in custody. In a final assertion on this remaining aborted MICT case, presiding Choose Bonomy famous: ‘Reflecting on the final six years, it appears to us that this case has highlighted a systemic hole in worldwide legal process that the Trial Chamber hopes the worldwide neighborhood will proceed to look at; particularly, the best way to obtain justice for an accused and for victims of alleged crimes following a dedication that an accused is completely unfit to face trial.’
Because the accused will get older – as do witnesses – how does worldwide justice adapt? or does it simply settle for, because the Mechanism did within the case of Kabuga, that nothing extra might be completed? Sadly, this isn’t a brand new dilemma; numerous Nazi Holocaust perpetrators escaped justice as a result of they had been deemed too previous or infirm by the point worldwide/nationwide legislation caught up with them. After 80 years, justice continues to be failing the victims and survivors of genocide and warfare crimes.
For Kabuga’s household, that had spent so lengthy sheltering Kabug from justice, the final obligation was to get him buried with out the general public outcry that had met makes an attempt to have Protais Zigiranyirazo, ‘Monsieur Z’, buried with a fanfare church service and graveside jamboree in Orleans, France in autumn 2025. They clearly realized from that fiasco which confirmed that even in loss of life, nobody desires a infamous killer mendacity for eternity in a public burial plot close to them. On Tuesday, 2 June, Kabuga was quietly buried in Waterloo, Brussels. The native authorities who gave the household permission for the burial had been, unsurprisingly, very reluctant to make any public remark concerning the causes for they allowed the internment of such a person.
Little doubt too that members of Kabuga’s household will now undertake new authorized battles to get their fingers on his in depth ‘blood monies’. In fact, none of this wealth will go close to Rwanda, to survivors of the genocide, to help these mentally, bodily and emotionally devastated by the horrific crimes of Kabuga’s life.
Kabuga’s nickname of ‘the financier of the genocide’ is neither acceptable or correct. With out his wealth the 1994 genocide in opposition to the Tutsi would nonetheless have taken place. Nevertheless, Kabuga selected to make use of his wealth, his highly effective connections and his racist ideology to allow, defend and prosper Hutu hate radio RTLM; and along with his native/nationwide funding/fundraising actions and logistical/political help for the Interahamwe, he gave it extremely vital help to hold out quite a few brutal genocidal killings/rapes of girls, youngsters and males.
It’s unattainable to quantify the precise variety of Tutsi lifeless to put at Kabuga’s door – or the struggling and ache to those that survived. The failure of the worldwide neighborhood and nationwide governments similar to Kenya, France and Switzerland to arrest Kabuga over a few years – or within the case of Kenya to actively defend him – brings into sharp focus the way in which wealth and indifference to genocide can corrupt the acknowledged adherence to the Genocide Conference.
The eventual method of Kabuga’s arrest in Paris, the failure of justice to be completed on the UN Mechanism and his loss of life whereas in a state of judicial limbo with no nation wanting to the touch a person with a lot blood on his fingers is symbolic of his life. Kabuga put greed and genocide first. In life he efficiently ran away from his bloody crimes. In loss of life, he can not escape his legacy.
This text was first printed by https://rwandajustice4genocide.org.uk/.
