Due to his advanced age and severe cognitive decline, United Nations (UN) war crimes judges ruled that Félicien Kabuga was unfit to stand trial, resulting in an indefinite stay of legal proceedings. He remained in custody in The Hague until his death, without a verdict.
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After living in France for years, with impunity, Kabuga, the financier of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, was not arrested until May 2020, despite having been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1997.
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His death drew my attention to other elderly genocide suspects residing in France, most notably former First Lady Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana.
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The question arose: could old age enable her to evade justice within the French judicial system, just as Kabuga’s age influenced the UN court that declared him unfit to stand trial until his death? At first glance, the answer appears to be yes.
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France does not impose a maximum age limit for criminal prosecution. However, advanced age strongly influences how sentences are served. Under Article 720 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, when a person over 70 is convicted, the court typically applies the principle of "individualization of penalties,” heavily weighing the offender’s medical needs, mental state, and physical condition before imposing strict prison sentences.
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Born on January 21, 1942, Kanziga is now 84 years old, the same age Kabuga was when he was arrested in Paris on May 16, 2020. Kabuga lived in at least six countries during his years on the run: Switzerland, Zaire, Kenya, Germany, Belgium, and finally France, where he lived under a false identity before his arrest. Kanziga arrived in Paris in 1994. France-based rights group Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda (CPCR) filed genocide charges against her in 2008, one year after she was denied political asylum in France. She nevertheless remained in the country with the support of the French government, despite lacking legal documentation. In March 2008, French magistrates opened a formal judicial inquiry.
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In 2010, just five days after then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned from a visit to Kigali, French authorities placed her under arrest. She was released the same day.
On August 21, 2025, French investigating judges officially dismissed the genocide case against her, citing insufficient evidence to formally prosecute her. Civil parties and France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office appealed the decision.
In January 2026, the Investigation Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal held closed-door hearings to examine the appeal against the dismissal. The genocide case against her was again dismissed on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence linking her to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
How can French justice find a woman whose crimes have been extensively documented by CPCR, and others, not guilty? A woman whose actions led the Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA) to deny her asylum? And whom former French President François Mitterrand reportedly described as "possessed by the devil; if she could, she would continue calling for massacres from French radios”?
French justice should try her immediately, before she uses her age to deny justice to the people of Rwanda, just as UN justice did in Kabuga’s case.
Kanziga must not evade prosecution. Survivors deserve legal resolution, not the frustration of another unresolved case. As the English writer and theologian William Penn stated, "To delay justice is injustice.”
The writer is a media specialist, historian, and playwright.