Monday April 10, 2023
Felicien Kabuga when he appeared for the commencement of his trial in September 2022. Image: HANDOUT
Rwandans will for the next 100 days join hands in commemorating the 1994 genocide which saw over a million Tutsi killed.
The memorial is aimed at honoring the victims, standing with survivors and recognising the resilience of the country.
This happens at a time lawyers representing Felicien Kabuga who is said to be the chief financier want Judges hearing his case to declare him unfit to stand trial.
"There is no other option than to declare Mr. Kabuga unfit to take part in his trial," his lawyer Emmanuel Altit is quoted by JusticeInfo.Net as to have submitted on March 30.
The report states that the lawyer presented this at the end of the hearings as independent medical expert, called to comment on the health of the suspect who is now 90 years old.
“The three experts’ verdict concluded that the suspect suffers from senile “dementia” and cannot really stand trial,” the report says.
According to Altit, his client cannot interact with his defence team, and in his current state does not have the capacity to give instructions.
Prosecutor Rupert Elderkin had just suggested that if Kabuga was to be declared unfit to participate in his trial, the proceedings could continue without him since in criminal trials the task of defence falls to the lawyers.
Presiding Judge Iain Bonomy argued this would not be a trial on the facts but "a review of the facts to ensure that the detention of an incapacitated person is justified”.
Kabuga has been on trial since September 29, 2022, before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) which succeeded the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
He was arrested on May 16, 2020, in France at the age of 87 and handed over to the IRMCT before being transferred to the custody of the IRMCT branch in The Hague in October.
He is facing six counts of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
The former businessman is accused of funding the Interahamwe- a militia that carried out attacks against civilians as well as Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), a private radio station that called for murder during the massacres.
This happens even as Rwanda continues to reestablish itself from the devastating events of April 7, 1994.
Before his arrest, Kabuga has been a fugitive for 26 years dodging several dragnets moving from one country to another.
He is said to have fled Rwanda in 1994 after the killings as it was being conquered by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and entered Switzerland but was ordered to leave.
The information available reveals that he went to Kinshasa in DR Congo and crossed over to Nairobi, Kenya.
In September 1995, before any indictment and before he was named as a suspected planner of the genocide, Kabuga is said to have registered and run a business, Nshikabem Agency, in Nairobi.
In fact when he visited Kenya in 2006, then US Senator Barack Obama delivered a speech in which he accused Kenya of "allowing Kabuga to purchase safe haven.”
Kabuga is married to Josephine Mukazitoni and has 11 children.
Two of his daughters are married to two of former president Juvénal Habyarimana's sons.