Lawyers For Rwanda Genocide Suspect Push For French Trial

Lawyers for Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga have called on UN prosecutors to end their international case and allow him to be tried in France where he was arrested

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jun, 2020 ) :Lawyers for Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga have called on UN prosecutors to end their international case and allow him to be tried in France where he was arrested.

Described as Africa's most wanted man, Kabuga is accused of financing the 1994 Rwanda genocide and was arrested at his home outside Paris on May 16 after years on the run.

His lawyers have already told a Paris appeals court, which must rule on Wednesday on the validity of the arrest warrant for Kabuga, that he wants to be tried in France.

In the letter, lawyer Laurent Bayon says his 84-year-old client should stay in France because of his age, health and the alleged lack of impartiality of international justice.

A judge in The Hague last month said Kabuga should be tried in a war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, under the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which is based in the Dutch city.

"If you decided to assert your jurisdiction over the French jurisdiction, thus putting Felicien Kabuga's life in danger, we would take the risk of giving up the truth, forever," Bayon wrote in a letter to MICT prosecutors.

The letter calls on MICT prosecutors to excuse themselves from the case and leave it to French justice.