A 93-year-old man suspected of playing a role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide has died while in custody at a United Nations detention facility, according to a UN court announcement on Saturday.
Lucien Kabuga had been captured in France during 2020 following more than 20 years as a fugitive before being transferred to The Hague. Court officials later determined he was mentally unfit for trial due to dementia and too sick to be sent back to Rwanda.
Since no nation agreed to take him in, Kabuga continued to be held at the UN detention facility in The Hague. Court officials have announced they will investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.
The deceased man, who previously operated businesses and owned a radio station, was considered one of the final wanted fugitives connected to the genocide. During that period, Hutu extremists murdered over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus within a span of 100 days.
Legal authorities had charged Kabuga with spreading hate speech via his radio station Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines and providing weapons to ethnic Hutu militias.
The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which announced his death, handles ongoing cases from previous UN tribunals dealing with Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
