Félicien Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s richest men, used 28 aliases to evade capture
PARIS, May 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) —The man accused of financing the Rwandan genocide has denied playing a role in the massacres.
“All of this is lies. I have not killed any Tutsis. I was working with them,” Félicien Kabuga told a French court during a bail hearing.
Kabuga’s denial in court, made in Kinyarwanda and translated by an interpreter, were his first public comments in more than a quarter of century.
The 84-year-old businessman was arrested earlier this month in a suburb in Paris after 26 years on the run.
Police say during this time he used 28 aliases to evade capture.
He is alleged to have backed and armed ethnic Hutu militias who slaughtered about 800,000 people in 1994.
In 1997 he was indicted by The International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) for Rwanda on seven counts including with genocide and crimes against humanity.
The UN tribunal wound up its operations in 2015 and its duties were transferred to a body at The Hague that handles outstanding war crimes cases and is pressing for Kabuga’s extradition.
His lawyers argue that Kabuga, who was detained in a dawn raid on May 16 in the suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine where he had been living under a false identity, should be tried in France instead of being transferred.
The court rejected a request to release Kabuga on the grounds of age and ill health as prosecutors said the octogenarian was a flight risk.
It will rule on the extradition request on June 3.
The search is still on for six other Rwandans accused of genocide.
Dozens of Hutus were convicted for their role in the killings by the ICTR and hundreds of thousands more faced trial in community courts in Rwanda. — NNN-AGENCIES
