May 25, 2020 (GIN) – Twenty-six years after financing the Rwandan genocide, wealthy businessman and most wanted fugitive, Felicien Kabuga, was nabbed in an upscale French hideout.
It was a relief for prosecutors of the Rwandan Genocide tribunal who feared the 84-year-old Kabuga could die a free man.
A former tea and coffee tycoon with 28 known aliases, Mr. Kabuga is alleged to have used his personal fortune to buy protection from a corrupt official in the office of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said it had evidence that Mr. Kabuga either visited or resided in Kenya, but successive Kenyan governments allegedly refused to hand over the wanted suspect.
Called the “preventable genocide”, the killings in Rwanda exposed a “disgraceful” failure of the international community as the U.N. ordered its blue-helmeted troops to evacuate foreigners – but not intervene to save the Tutsis from slaughter.
