Félicien Kabuga: Rwanda genocide trial halted over dementia claims

The trial of a suspected mastermind of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 has been put on hold at The Hague.

Félicien Kabuga, who is 90, was set to face trial after evading capture for 26 years, but his lawyers say he has dementia and is not fit to stand trial.

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals agreed to a pause while his health is assessed.

Mr Kabuga, a wealthy businessman, is accused of using his radio station to urge ethnic Hutus to kill rival Tutsis.

He is alleged to have fuelled the genocide by broadcasting inflammatory hate speech.

It has also been claimed that he used his large fortune made in the 1970s tea trade to buy machetes used to arm the Hutu death squads. He has denied all the charges.

Mr Kabuga was arrested in 2020 after managing to avoid capture for decades. French investigators tracked him down to an apartment in Paris where he had been living under a false identity.

Survivors of the genocide have previously expressed concerns that justice might not be served if Mr Kabuga dies without facing trial at the ICC, which was already expected to take years.