Credit: U.S. Department of State /  Rwanda Genocide fugitive,  Félicien Kabuga, was arrested May 16, 2020 near Paris. 

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

A court in France agreed Wednesday to transfer Rwanda Genocide fugitive Félicien Kabuga to a United Nations tribunal based  in The Hague, Netherlands and Arusha, Tanzania.   The Paris Court of Appeal ruled that the 86-year-old’s health   is not an obstacle to extradition to  the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) , which took over any ongoing cases after the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was wound down in 2015.  French police arrested Kabuga  last month in a Paris suburb. The 86-year-old was one of the most wanted suspects in the Rwandan holocaust. Kabuga  was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnières-Sur-Seine, near the centre of Paris, had been pursued by authorities for 25 years before his detention on Saturday, according to the French justice ministry.  The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted Kabuga  in 1997 for genocide, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. According to the U.S. State Department, Kabuga is alleged to be the main financier and backer of the political and militia groups that committed the Rwandan.  Kabuga was co-founder and chairman of the Fonds de Défense Nationale (FDN).  Through this organization, Kabuga is alleged to have provided funds to the interim Rwandan government for the purposes of executing the 1994 genocide.  The US had offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to Kabuga’s arrest.  Kabuga is expected to stand trial at the  UN International Court.  Lawyers for  Kabuga, who is currently detained at the Maison d’arrêt de la Santé in Paris, had requested that the proceedings continue in France. The Paris Court’s decision can be appealed within 10 days in the form of a cassation appeal.

Genocide survivors, ideally want Kabuga to be prosecuted in Rwanda.

As Many as 800,000 People, Mostly of the Tutsi minority, Were Murdered In The  Genocide 

 Human skulls at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial  /  During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority.