Felicien Kabuga, one of the primary financiers and inciters of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, has died in prison at the age of 93. The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal officially confirmed the event on Saturday. The judicial body immediately ordered a formal investigation into the specific circumstances surrounding his passing.
Kabuga was previously one of the world`s most hunted fugitives.
He spent over two decades evading international law enforcement agencies by utilizing multiple counterfeit passports across various nations. In 2013, an international arrest warrant was issued against him, carrying a five-million-dollar bounty for his capture. He was eventually arrested in France in 2020 and subsequently transferred to The Hague to face trial. His formal prosecution began in 2022 on multiple accounts of genocide, incitement, conspiracy, and crimes against humanity.
The wealthy businessman allegedly played a pivotal role in operating a notorious radio station. The broadcast channel was actively used to call for the systematic extermination of the Tutsi population. Within a span of just 100 days between April and June 1994, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were brutally slaughtered. This organized mass violence erupted shortly after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down near Kigali.
Kabuga consistently denied all charges brought against him.
However, the international court later declared him unfit to stand trial due to severe dementia, drawing fierce backlash from genocide survivors. Owing to his critical health conditions, he was not repatriated to Rwanda. Since no other nation agreed to grant him asylum, Kabuga remained confined at the UN detention center in The Hague until his passing.
