The trial for the Rwanda’s Genocide suspect, Félicien Kabuga has been scheduled to take place in September 2025 but via video conferencing.
The trial chamber for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunal has arranged for a status conference to be held on Thursday, 25 September 2025 at 2 p.m. in the courtroom of the Hague Branch of the Mechanism.
According to the Presiding Judge, Iain Bonomy, in the Netherlands, a recording of the hearing will be made available to the public as soon as possible after the sessions have been concluded.
Carla Del Ponte, the prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, then based in Arusha, Tanzania filed the case against Kabuga on the 29th of August 1998, Felicien Kabuga while the suspect was still at large.
In the amended indictment dated 1 October 2004, the ICTR prosecutor Hassan Jallow charged Kabuga of Conspiracy to commit genocide, Genocide, or alternatively Complicity in genocide; Direct and public incitement to commit genocide and Extermination as a crime against humanity.
Félicien Kabuga is reported to have been one of the main importers of 500,000 machetes that were used to hack people to death during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.
The weapons are believed to have been shipped to Kigali between January 1993 and March 1994, from mostly China.
He was arrested in Paris, France in 2020 after being a renegade for over 26 years. On 27 May, that year Kabuga denied the charges, but was refused bail.
Three years later in March 2023, Kabuga’s trial was suspended to evaluate the claims by his lawyers that the accused was suffering from dementia and thus not mentally fit to stand trial.
Félicien Kabuga has remained in detention at the United Nations Detention Unit with a medical monitoring regime, in accordance with Rules 59, 67, and 68(A) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence (“Rules”), and that the Trial Chamber ordered that status conferences continue to be held regularly.
In December 2024, the Trial Chamber issued a confidential order, in which it instructed the Registrar to appoint a further independent medical expert to file a written report that addresses any risks to Mr. Kabuga’s physical and mental health associated with transporting
him by air.
The Registrar appointed Dr Gert Muurling on 29 January 2025 and on 2 June 2025; the Trial Chamber issued an order instructing Dr. Muurling to provide further information and clarifications in response to a list of questions posed by the Trial Chamber and by 23 June 2025, the Registrar filed the supplementary report from Dr. Muurling.
The Registrar’s Submission in relation to the “Decision on Félicien Kabuga’s Fitness is that, in view of the accused’s health condition, he may appear via video-conference link, should he wish to attend the hearing.