26 years on the run. Is Felicien Kabuga the most elusive man in the world?
Published on May 19, 2020
How far can you run, and for how long can you hide before someone puts their hands on you is a question that has been in my head.
This is after the Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 25 years on the run.
Kabuga, a man so secretive you would barely spot him in a crowd is accused of playing a leading role in one of the worst massacres of the 20th century.
The 84-year-old, who is Rwanda’s most-wanted man and had a $5m bounty on his head, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, according to the French justice ministry.
He was indicted in 1997 on seven criminal counts including genocide, all in relation to the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.
How he stayed on the run for 26 years or for how many years was he in France and receiving help to live comfortably is a question many will be interested to know.
Kabuga, a Hutu businessman, is accused of funding the militias that massacred over a million Tutsis over a span of 100 days in 1994.
The arrest paves the way for bringing the fugitive in front of the Paris appeal court and later to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
During the reign of the late President Daniel arap Moi, a company called Kenya Trust Company (KTC) Ltd was collecting hundreds of thousands of shillings every month from apartments owned by Kabuga and his wife, had no known address.
Kabuga was able to register a business in Kenya and co-owned House No. 6 on LR No. 1/1154, also known as Spanish Villas, on Lenana Road in Nairobi with his wife, Josephine Mukazitoni.
Mukazitoni died at the age of 75 in 2017 in Belgium, where she was living.
Other than the apartments, the Kabugas ran a matatu business and some companies, which were later subject of court cases.
Kabuga acquired the property in 1995, and three years later, KTC Ltd was contracted by the couple’s daughter Bernadette Uwamariya to manage it.
Although the physical address of KTC Ltd is not known, the company had been collecting rent and depositing it in an account that was owned by Kabuga at the Commercial Bank of Africa.
The account was closed in 2005 and the Sh3.4 million in it wired to an account Kabuga co-owned with Ms Mukazitoni in Belgium.
Since then, the court was told, KTC wired Sh290,000 in French Francs every three months to Banque De La Poste in Belgium.
In October 2015, the Court of Appeal affirmed the freezing of assets owned by the Kabugas.