Félicien Kabuga, considered one of the main suspects involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, died in custody at the age of 93, a United Nations tribunal based in The Hague announced on Saturday.
A former influential businessman and media owner, Kabuga was arrested in France in 2020 after more than twenty years on the run internationally. He was then extradited to The Hague to be tried by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which oversees the remaining cases of the former UN tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
The proceedings against him were suspended after judges declared him unfit to stand trial. Medical experts concluded that his advanced dementia and state of health prevented him from participating in a trial or being transferred to Rwanda.
With no country willing to accept him, Félicien Kabuga remained detained in the United Nations detention center in The Hague until his death. The tribunal indicated that it had ordered an investigation to determine the exact circumstances of his death.
Kabuga was among the last fugitives wanted for the Rwandan genocide, in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in the space of one hundred days by Hutu extremists, according to international estimates.
Prosecutors accused him, in particular, of playing a major role in spreading hate speech through Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, infamous for inciting violence during the genocide. He was also suspected of having participated in financing and arming Hutu militias involved in the massacres.
His death brings to an end one of the most emblematic proceedings related to the Rwandan genocide, without a verdict being reached on the accusations against him.
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