Felicien Kabuga, accused of financing the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, died in a hospital in The Hague, Netherlands, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) announced Saturday.
In a statement, the mechanism said the medical officer of the United Nations Detention Unit (UNDU) was immediately notified, while Dutch authorities launched standard procedures and investigations required under national law.
It added that Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, the president of the mechanism, ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kabuga’s death, assigning Judge Alphons Orie to conduct the investigation.
Kabuga, a Rwandan businessman, was charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The now-defunct International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) issued an arrest warrant for Kabuga in April 2013.
He was arrested in France in May 2020 and transferred to the Hague branch of the mechanism in October that year. His trial began in September 2022.
But in September 2023, the Trial Chamber issued a decision, indefinitely staying the proceedings after Kabuga was considered unfit to stand trial a month earlier by the Appeals Chamber.
The court ordered that he remain in detention at the UN detention unit pending a decision on his provisional release.
At the time of his death, he was awaiting provisional release to a state willing to accept him on its territory.
Born in 1935 in northern Rwanda’s Byumba prefecture, now known as Gicumbi district near the Ugandan border, Kabuga rose from modest beginnings to become one of Rwanda’s wealthiest businessmen.
He was accused of using his fortune to help finance the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group, during which around 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed over a span of 100 days.
Tom Ndahiro, a Rwanda-based genocide researcher, told Anadolu in a previous interview that Kabuga played a role in establishing the notorious hate broadcaster Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which incited violence against the Tutsi population.
