Rwandan genocide suspect Kabuga dies in The Hague at age 91

Key Points:

• Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan suspect charged with financing and encouraging the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi minority, died in a hospital in The Hague while in custody, three years after being declared unfit to stand trial due to dementia.
• Kabuga's trial began in 2022, nearly 30 years after the genocide that killed approximately 800,000 people, but was suspended in 2023 when judges ruled he could no longer participate in the trial.
• An investigation has been ordered to determine the circumstances of Kabuga's death, which occurred while he was detained by the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
• Kabuga was arrested in France in 2020 following a 2013 arrest warrant and a $5 million bounty; he faced charges including genocide, incitement, conspiracy, persecution, extermination, and murder, and had pleaded not guilty.
• His inability to stand trial and continued detention without provisional release angered many genocide survivors in Rwanda, who believed he deserved the maximum sentence for his alleged crimes.