An 88-year-old man suspected of being a significant financier of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has been declared unable to stand trial by a UN war crimes court.
He is reported to have funded ethnic Hutu militias that killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. He is said to have been Rwanda’s richest man at the time. He disputes the accusations.
The president of the organization for Rwandan genocide survivors, Ibuka, told BBC Great Lakes that he was “saddened” by the jury’s verdict.
When he was captured, the survivors felt relieved because they believed they would finally receive justice, according to Philbert Gakwenzire.
He stated that the association was considering “ways to take this forward” and expressed doubt that Mr. Kabuga was indeed incompetent to face trial.
In the decades-long effort to prosecute anyone suspected of participating in the genocide in Rwanda, this is the first time a court has issued such a decision.
According to their decision, Mr. Kabuga was “unfit to participate meaningfully in his trial and is very unlikely to regain fitness in the future,” according to judges at a UN war crimes court in The Hague. Four of the judges reached a consensus, but one judge dissented.
The judges suggested a different course of action that “as closely resembles a trial as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction.”
In order to check his health, the court had halted his trial in March. Although there is some debate over his exact age, court documents state that he is 88.
It is reported that Mr. Kabuga spent a significant portion of the income he amassed through the 1970s tea trade buying arms for the Hutu death squads.
