UN: Kenya slow to arrest Kabuga

UN: Kenya slow to arrest Kabuga

Arusha, March 28 – A top United Nations official has chided Kenya for doing little to arrest a fugitive Rwandan businessman accused of funding the 1994 genocide.

The UN Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs Patricia O’Brien reiterated the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accusations that Nairobi was slow to arrest businessman Felicien Kabuga, believed to be operating from Kenya.

"My travelling to Kenya is sufficient demonstration that not enough has been done," O’Brien said at the end of a 2-day visit to the Tanzania-based ICTR.

The UN official, who was due in Nairobi later Friday, also urged Democratic Republic of Congo to arrest 12 other Rwandan genocide suspects believed to be in hiding there.

Frequent traveller

Kenyan authorities have repeatedly denied that Kabuga, an ethnic Hutu, is in the country.

In December, Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said the country should not be made a scapegoat for the failure to arrest the wealthy businessman after the court made fresh calls on Nairobi to do more to seize him.

Born in 1935, Kabuga is said to be a frequent traveller to various African nations where he buys protection.

He was thrown out of Switzerland in 1994, and spent some time in DR Congo before seeking refuge in Kenya, where he has escaped several arrest attempts.

That included in 1998, when an ICTR team raided a Nairobi house allegedly rented from a nephew of former president Daniel Arap Moi and found a note indicating Kabuga had been tipped off by Kenyan police.
 

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