PARIS, France
Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga was arraigned before a French
public prosecutor on Tuesday, three days after police swooped on his hideout in
a Paris suburb, ending a 26-year manhunt.A police convoy believed to be carrying Rwandan genocide fugitive Felicien Kabuga arrives at the Paris courthouse where Kabuga is due to appear for an arraignment hearing, France, May 19, 2020.
The 84-year-old is accused of funding
and arming militias that massacred about 800,000 people. He was indicted in
1997 on seven criminal counts including genocide, all in relation to the 1994
Rwanda genocide.
Kabuga arrived at the Paris Appeals
Court complex under heavy police protection. Outriders flanked the convoy and
armed officers guarded the entrance. The hearing began about three hours later,
a judicial source said.
The prosecutor was to set out the
legal process before the case is passed to investigative judges who will decide
whether to transfer Kabuga to a U.N. court handling alleged crimes against
humanity.
At least one French-based genocide
victim support group said it was considering legal action to unearth how Kabuga
was able to go underground in France and what help he had received.
“He was our Klaus Barbie, our (Adolf)
Eichmann,” said Etienne Nsanzimana, president of support group Ibuka France,
referring to two prominent Nazi war criminals.
“How did he stay on the run for 26
years? For how many years was he in France and receiving help to live
comfortably. I don’t think it was just his family,” Nsanzimana added.
Reuters has not been able to find any
public comment made by Kabuga over the years about the charges. French lawyer
Emmanuel Altit, who will be defending Kabuga, did not respond to a request
seeking comment from his client.
Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate
Hutus were killed in 100 days of killing from April 6, 1994, orchestrated by
the Hutu-led government and its ethnic militia allies.
Kabuga, a Hutu businessman, is
accused of bankrolling the militia.
It is not known when or how Kabuga,
who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, entered France.
France’s justice ministry has said he lived under a false identity in Asnieres-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris.
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