Paris - Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien
Kabuga, indicted in his absence on charges of bankrolling ethnic
militias that massacred some 800 000 people in 1994, was brought
before a French court on Wednesday.
In his first appearance in public in more than two decades,
the octogenarian was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair,
dressed in jeans and a blue jumper and wearing a face mask.
He spoke to confirm his identity.
Felicien Kabuga's French lawyer Emmanuel Altit enters the courtroom in Paris. elicien Kabuga, one of the most wanted fugitives in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, a wealthy businessman accused of supplying machetes to killers and broadcasting propaganda urging mass slaughter, was arrested outside Paris last week. Picture: Christophe Ena/AP
Kabuga was arrested on Saturday in a Paris suburb and the
court is to decide whether to transfer him for trial to a UN war crimes tribunal.
An undated wanted poster by United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals depicting photographs of Rwandan genocide fugitive suspect Felicien Kabuga and other Rwandan fugitives is seen on a wall in the office of Eric Emeraux, head of the Gendarmerie's Central Office for Combating Crimes Against Humanity, Genocides and War Crimes (OCLCH), in Paris. Picture: Benoit Tessier/AP