Rwandan genocide suspect Kabuga dies in custody at age 93

Félicien Kabuga, a suspect in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has died in custody, the United Nations court said on Saturday, Reuters reported. He was 93.

Kabuga was arrested in France in 2020, after more than two decades on the run, and extradited to The Hague. He was later declared unfit to stand trial due to dementia and was also deemed too ill to be returned to Rwanda.

With no country willing to accept him, Kabuga remained in a UN detention facility in The Hague. The court said it had ordered an investigation into the circumstances of his death.

The former businessman and radio station owner was among the last fugitives wanted for the genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed more than 800.000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.

The prosecution accused Kabuga of promoting hate speech through his station Radio-Television Libre de Mille Colin and of helping arm ethnic Hutu militias.

The court that announced his death, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, oversees the remaining cases of the former UN tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.