Businessman accused of having a “vital role” in the 1994 Rwandan genocide begins trial

“This case aims to hold Félicien Kabuga accountable for his significant and deliberate contribution to the genocide,” said prosecutor Rashid S. Rashid, at the opening of the case before the International Mechanism for Relics, after 28 years of massacre committed in a hundred days. Criminal Courts in The Hague (MTPI) in the absence of the accused.

To the shell, 87, decided not to appear even by video conference. When she was last seen in public last August, she came to the courtroom in disfigured and difficult to intervene, and her lawyers tried to delay the hearing, arguing that her health did not allow her to face due process.

The judges have decided to continue the trial this Thursday, as it did in 2020. shell He had already claimed not guilty in his first appearanceHe was arrested in the suburbs of Paris 26 years later, shortly after escaping international justice using pseudonyms in various countries.

Rashid stressed this Thursday “There is no reasonable basis to claim that there was a campaign to completely or at least partially destroy the Rwandan Tutsis” He reminded that “hundreds of people were victims of rape and sexual assault” in Rwanda, in addition to the killings in which the Tutsi ethnic group was tried to be wiped out for hundreds of days.

Kabuga is accused of “obtaining weapons and distributing them (to Hutu groups)” to attack ethnic Tutsis or anyone suspected of supporting them, but he also “founded and directed” Radio Télévision Libre des Mille collines (RTLM), a station that promotes hatred and Violence against Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

Kabuga was “known as one of Rwanda’s richest men” and “Substantial political influence through close ties” met with prominent Rwandan politicians and, as an example, the prosecution recalled that Kabuga’s daughter married the eldest son of Rwandan president Juvénal Habiarimana (Hutu ethnic group).

Thanks to his legacy, Kabuga had a “vital role in the financing of the genocide”. “The need to use a rifle or a machete at the barricade”, According to the indictment, the Interahamwe paramilitary group, which he also facilitated the creation of, allegedly “delivered weapons en masse and facilitated his training” was enough for him.

Anyone “He had to get in front of the microphone to call the annihilation of the Tutsis over the radio.”For achieving the same by “acting as the founder, funder and chairman” of RTLM, which “broadcasts propaganda” calling for genocide in Rwanda, including providing locations and other data that promoted or facilitated the killing of Tutsis.

While Kabuga is accused of providing material, logistical, material and moral support to the Interahamwe gangs who participated in the attacks and murders on the barricades against Tutsis and in their homes in different regions, the Prosecutor’s Office hopes to take statements from at least fifty witnesses. support these accusations.

Established to complement work initiated by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, among others, MRITP began a case against Kabuga on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in trying to exterminate the Tutsis in Rwanda. from importing half a million machetes used in murders.

shell Transferred to the division of the mechanism in The Haguealthough it corresponds to his trial in the Arusha subdivision (Tanzania), where he was not transferred due to his fragile state of health, it is appropriate that the proceedings are not decided to continue later if the court judges take it into account.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today that the trial was “an important step forward in efforts to ensure accountability for the planning, ordering and execution of genocide”, while the UN stressed the importance of this judicial process by helping to prevent further attempts. in the genocide.

Arguments will continue to be heard this Friday, but There will be no time until 5 October for witnesses to be heard and evidence presented..