After 26 years on the run, Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga was arrested on Saturday. Kabuga has been accused of killing 800,000 Rwandans in 1994.
Kabuga, Rwanda’s most wanted man, had a US$5 million bounty on his head and according to the French justice ministry, was living under a false identity in Paris.
In 1997, Kabuga was indicted on seven criminal counts all in relation to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, otherwise known as the genocide against the Tutsis.
Rwanda has two main ethnic groups – the Hutus and Tutsis. The groups have historically had a hostile relationship fighting a Civil War in the early 1990s, during which the genocide took place. The brutality of the massacre was one that shocked the international community. Victims were killed in their villages or towns with machetes and rifles. It is estimated that around 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis were killed which represents about 70% of the nation’s Tutsi population.
Kabuga – a Hutu business person – is accused of being the main financier of the militias who carried out these massacres.
More than a quarter of a century after the genocide, Kabuga will go on trial at an international court.
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