Félicien Kabuga, the alleged financier of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has died while under detention in The Hague, Netherlands, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals announced on Friday.
The United Nations-backed tribunal said Kabuga died while hospitalised in The Hague, where he had been held since his arrest in France in 2020 after more than two decades as one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
According to the tribunal, the Medical Officer of the United Nations Detention Unit immediately notified Dutch authorities, who have begun the standard investigations required under Dutch law.
Mechanism President Graciela Gatti Santana also ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kabuga’s death, assigning Judge Alphons Orie to conduct the investigation.
Kabuga, a wealthy Rwandan businessman born in 1935 in Byumba prefecture, was accused of playing a central role in financing and promoting the genocide in which more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi, were killed between April and July 1994.
Prosecutors accused him of helping establish and finance the notorious Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), whose broadcasts allegedly incited ethnic hatred and directed killings during the genocide.
He was also accused of funding and arming Interahamwe militias that carried out massacres across Rwanda.
The indictment against Kabuga included six counts: genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution, extermination, and murder as crimes against humanity.
An international arrest warrant was issued against him in 2013 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
However, he evaded capture for more than 20 years before being arrested in May 2020 in Asnières-sur-Seine, near Paris, during a joint operation involving French authorities and international prosecutors.
He was transferred to the Hague branch of the tribunal in October 2020 and formally pleaded not guilty to all charges during his initial appearance in November that year.
His trial eventually opened in September 2022 but progressed slowly because of his deteriorating health. Medical experts later concluded that Kabuga suffered from severe cognitive impairment and was unfit to stand trial.
In August 2023, the Appeals Chamber ruled that proceedings against him should be indefinitely stayed after finding that an alternative trial procedure proposed by judges was incompatible with the tribunal’s statute and rules.
At the time of his death, Kabuga remained in detention at the United Nations Detention Unit while efforts were underway to secure a country willing to accept him on provisional release.
The tribunal noted that Kabuga had continued receiving intensive medical monitoring and treatment while in custody, with independent experts repeatedly concluding that he was unlikely to regain fitness to stand trial.
Kabuga’s case was among the final major prosecutions linked to the Rwanda genocide being handled by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the successor institution to the ICTR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The Mechanism, established by the United Nations Security Council in 2010, continues to oversee remaining international criminal cases, appeals, fugitives, and enforcement matters arising from the two tribunals.
