He had been living in a town north of Paris, Asnieres-Sur-Seine, under an assumed name, the appeals court’s prosecutor’s office said.
The U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted Kabuga in 1997 on charges related to conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution and extermination.
Rwandan prosecutors have said financial documents found in the capital, Kigali, after the genocide indicated that Kabuga used his companies to import vast quantities of machetes that were used slaughter people.
The wealthy businessman also was accused of establishing the station Radio Television Mille Collines that broadcast vicious propaganda against the ethnic Tutsi, as well as training and equipping the Interahamwe militia that led the killing spree.
“An important step towards justice for hundreds of thousands of genocide victims,” Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said of his arrest.
Kabuga was close to former President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose death when his plane was shot down over Kigali sparked the 100-day genocide. Kabuga’s daughter married Habyarimana’s son.
Kabuga is expected to be transferred to the custody of the U.N. mechanism, where he will stand trial. It is based at The Hague.
“The arrest of Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even 26 years after their crimes,” the mechanism’s chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.
Officials in Rwanda hailed the arrest and said the East African nation will continue to collaborate with the U.N. mechanism to ensure that justice is served.
According to Rwandan prosecutors, other top fugitives still at large include Protais Mpiranya, the former commandant of the Presidential Guards, and former defense minister Augustin Bizimana.
Source: politico.com
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