Gov’t calls for concrete action against Kabuga

KIGALI - The National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) has urged Kenyan authorities to take more serious action to pursue and arrest Felicien Kabuga, the alleged financier of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
L-R : CONFIRMED THE DEVELOPMENT: Augustin Nkusi ; TIGHTLIPPED; Hassan Bubacar Jallow (File photo)

KIGALI - The National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) has urged Kenyan authorities to take more serious action to pursue and arrest Felicien Kabuga, the alleged financier of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The remarks follow reports in Kenyan media on Monday which revealed that the country’s security agencies have renewed the hunt for the Genocide fugitive.

"If they are serious this time, it should be manifested in actions and not just words,” the NPPA Spokesperson, Augustin Nkusi told The New Times yesterday.

The media reports said that international and local investigators in Kenya have found new leads, which they are using to track down the fugitive.

"They (Kenyan government) have the ability to arrest him; it’s only the will that is missing. Let this not end in words because these have been spoken for a long time,” Nkusi said.

When contacted, the Kenya’s High Commissioner to Rwanda, Harriet Ndumo. was tightlipped on the matter, only saying that a joint tracking task force comprising of the Kenyan government and ICTR is doing its work to arrest Kabuga.

"I have not looked at those reports but what we are aware of is that Kabuga is not in Kenya,” she said.

The ICTR Chief Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow declined to give a comment, referring this newspaper to his personal assistant.

Kabuga is the most wanted Genocide suspect sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) still on the run. The United States placed a five-million-dollar bounty on his head.

Kabuga, 75, was expelled from Switzerland in 1994, and spent some time in Democratic Republic of Congo before seeking refuge in Kenya, where he has dodged several attempts to arrest him.

In 1998, an ICTR team raided a Nairobi rented house and found a note indicating that the fugitive, who escaped arrest, had been tipped off by police.

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