By Chris Muhizi for MCN.
Felicien Kabuga, an elderly Rwandan genocide defendant, will have his war crimes trial halted indefinitely due to dementia, a panel of UN appeals judges said on Monday, rejecting proposals for a different, more streamlined process.
A smaller trial chamber was also given the order by the judges, who are a part of the court that replaced the Rwanda war crimes tribunal, to quickly determine the conditions of Kabuga’s release. His attorney has already stated that his client ought to be released.
Kabuga was declared unable to stand trial by U.N. war crimes judges in June, but they recommended alternate trial methods instead.
The prosecution contended that postponing the trial would be unfair to the victims and that Kabuga’s own conduct had forced him to stand trial at a senior citizen’s age with decreased mental capacity.
Félicien Kabuga, the suspected financier of the genocide against the Tutsis, was detained in the suburbs of Paris in May 2020 on charges of crimes against humanity. In an appeal this week, UN justices ruled in favor of freeing the defendants and ordered the trial to be suspended indefinitely.
The decision in the case of former business mogul Felicien Kabuga, who is accused of establishing a hate broadcaster that encouraged the 1994 massacre of almost 800,000 people, was criticized by the Ibuka group, which represents survivors.
According to Naphtali Ahishakiye, executive secretary of the association, “the decision to possibly release Kabuga is an intentional insult to the deep wounds that those who survived the genocide suffer.”
Ahishakiye said that the survivors are “extremely angry and disappointed,” adding that it set a “deplorable precedent.”