Felicien Kabuga to be arraigned in court
By Amina Wako and AgenciesFelicien Kabuga, who was arrested on Saturday in Paris, is on Tuesday scheduled to be arraigned in court.
His French lawyer, Emmanuel Altit, who has in the past also represented former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, said Kabuga, who widely believed to have masterminded the Rwanda Genocide, will be presented in court for the initial plea hearing.
GENOCIDE
“The court will set out the legal process before passing the case to investigative judges within eight days,” the lawyer told Reuters on Monday.
Mr Kabuga is accused of financing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and it will be the first time he steps in court since he was arrested over the weekend inside a suburb in the northern part of the French capital city Paris.
This means that if Kabuga appeals against the courts decision then the matter will be taken forward to the France’s Court of Cessation where the ruling will be determined whether it is within the law.
By close of business on Tuesday, Mr Kabuga will know whether he is supposed to be handed over to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals or tried in France.
The Rwandan Government has insisted that the suspect should be handed over to his home country where he will face trial.
THE CHARGES
Mr Kabuga was arrested by the French police who tracked his children’s phone signals that led them to where he was living in a third floor flat on the Rue during Reverend Pere Christian Gilbert in Paris which has been described as a well-off neighbourhood.
He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) in August 1998 and an arrest warrant issued a year later.
Mr Kabuga is charged on 11 counts, including genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, complicity in genocide and direct and public incitation to commit genocide.
He is also accused of, assassination as a crime against humanity, extermination as a crime against humanity, rape as a crime against humanity, persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds as crimes against humanity in addition to various war crimes.
Seven of Mr Kabuga’s accomplices, who have been on the run for the last 26 years, are yet to be arrested.