Rwanda says respects UN court ruling on Kabuga though painful to survivors

KIGALI, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) --

Rwanda respects a United Nations court ruling that ordered an indefinite halt of the trial of alleged Rwandan genocide financier Felicien Kabuga, though it is "painful to genocide survivors," government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said.

She was responding Tuesday to the decision of the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague that Kabuga is unfit to stand trial.

Kabuga's trial opened in September last year before the tribunal, following his arrest in France in 2020.

However, in June judges ruled that, based on a report of three court-appointed medical experts, Kabuga was found to be unfit to participate meaningfully in his trial, a decision prosecution challenged in the court's Appeals Chamber.

In an order, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said it would "adopt an alternative finding procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction."

In the latest ruling on Monday, the Appeals Chamber dismissed the proposal to adopt alternative procedure altogether, effectively sending the matter back to the court's trial chamber with instructions to stay the trial.

"Rwanda respects the verdict of the Appeals Chamber to halt Kabuga's trial indefinitely, but it is not amusing to genocide survivors," Makolo told local media. "Still, Kabuga remains a suspect for grave crimes."

Rwandan genocide survivors also criticized the latest ruling.

"For survivors who will see Kabuga walking free, it is a feeling of justice denied," Naphatal Ahishakiye, the executive secretary of Rwanda genocide survivors' organizations, told Xinhua.

The court's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, in a statement Tuesday expressed solidarity with survivors, saying that the ruling "must be respected, even if the outcome is dissatisfying."

Brammertz, who visited Rwanda last week to meet survivors and government officials, also noted that survivors have maintained their faith in the justice process over the last three decades.

"I know that this outcome will be distressing and disheartening to them. Having visited Rwanda recently, I heard very clearly how important it was that this trial be concluded," he said.

Kabuga, 88, was charged with genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and persecution on political grounds, extermination, and murder as crimes against humanity, committed in Rwanda in 1994. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Kabuga was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in August 1998, and an international arrest warrant was issued for him the next year.

He was arrested in Paris in May 2020 after 26 years of hiding.