Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga can be handed over to a United Nations tribunal in Tanzania, France’s top civil court ruled on Wednesday, rejecting his lawyers’ application that he should face justice in France.
He will be charged for his alleged role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide of some 800,000 people by Hutus extremists targeting minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The 87-year-old’s arrest in Paris in May ended a manhunt lasting more than two decades.
Kabuga has denounced the charges, including genocide and incitement to commit genocide, as “lies”.
In a statement, France’s Cour de Cassation said it “considers that the investigating chamber was able to consider correctly that there was no legal or medical obstacle to the execution of the arrest warrant transfer order to the United Nations detention centre in Arusha, Tanzania.”
In their submission, his lawyers argued that Kabuga’s health was too frail for him to be transferred to Tanzania, particularly during a dangerous pandemic.
They also argued that French law violated the constitution by failing to provide for a thorough examination of international arrest warrants.
The Cour de Cassation’s ruling upholds one by a lower court on June 3 that Kabuga be extradited, ruling that his health was not “incompatible” with a transfer to a U.N. tribunal.
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