The Prosecutor General of the International Courts, including the ICTR (IRMCT), Serge Brammertz, announced that the only solution to the problem of Félicien Kabuga, who has been incarcerated in the Netherlands for a year but the court requested his release, is to send him to Rwanda and that the department he works for supports that idea.
Kabuga, who was under investigation for his role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tusti, was arrested in France on May 16, 2020. Since then, he has been detained in the prisons of the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands.
It was in September 2022 that Kabuga, who was one of the most important financiers in Rwanda in the Genocide against the Tutsis, began his trial in The Hague in the Netherlands, where he is imprisoned.
A report made by doctors in June 2022 showed that the man has various heart and lung diseases and Osteoporosis which makes the bones very easy to break down quickly.
On different occasions it has been shown that Félicien Kabuga is no longer able to remember the events of the past, so in November 2023, after a long debate, the IRMCT concluded that it stopped prosecuting Félicien Kabuga, and that a way should be found for his release because his health and mental capacity do not allow him to continue the trial .
It is a controversial decision because of the important role he is accused of in the Genocide against the Tutsis, which is being the main sponsor of the Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines which was widely used to identify and kill the Tutsis.
After confirming that Kabuga was no longer prosecuted, it was left to find a country that would host him, but last year he was still locked up in the prisons of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Prosecutor Serge Brammertz, when he delivered a speech at the UN Security Council on December 10, indicated that the solution to Kabuga’s problem would be to send him to Rwanda, and the organization he represents is the one who supports it.
He said “Kabuga Félicien is still in prison in the Netherlands. Our office supports the idea of sending him to Rwanda, the country where he was born, so that this problem can be found a lasting solution.”
In July 2023, the Memorial Society of Genocide Survivors against the Tutsis appealed to the High Court of Gasabo requesting the seizure of Kabuga Félicien’s property, while the civil case for compensation continues.
You expressed concern that his property could be confiscated or destroyed, so it should be confiscated.
Although he says that it is difficult to get real compensation equal to the value of those killed in the Genocide that the survivors of their families had, and that it is difficult to “find the real value equal to the property that was destroyed and looted by those killed because of Kabuga’s participation”, IBUKA pleaded with those represents compensation for suffering, damages and production equivalent to 50,658,800,000,000 Frw.