African Press International (API)

Publication Date: 2008/06/01

Confusion reigns over the whereabouts of Rwandan fugitive Felicien Kabuga after an alleged interview was posted on the internet claiming he was in Norway.

Mr Kabuga.Photo/FILE

And Kenya may face sanctions this week when the manhunt for the fugitive is set for discussion by the UN Security Council on Wednesday.  

A blogger who identified himself as Kipter Korir, the chief editor of African Press International, an online newsletter, claims he interviewed Kabuga early last month in an Oslo hotel.

But the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and a host of diplomats were treating the Kabuga interview as a “hoax”.

The blogger maintained in a telephone interview with the Sunday Nation that he had met Kabuga, who is charged with supplying machetes to militia in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which at least 800,000 were killed, in an Oslo hotel through a Sudanese businessman.

Korir, the editor of African Press International that posted the May 12, 2008 interview with Kabuga on its website, says he did not know he was going to meet the fugitive who has been on the run for the last 14 years until he entered his hotel room.

“I met him after I was invited to an Oslo hotel room by one of my Sudanese friends who was visiting Norway,” he said.

But the ICTR, the Rwandan government, the Rwandan media, as well as the international community have dismissed the interview as a smokescreen.

The interview was allegedly carried out just four days after the High Court in Kenya froze one of Kabuga’s accounts in Nairobi where rent for a property in Kilimani area was deposited through a company whose address remains unknown.

The interview also seems to have been timed for release ahead of this week’s UN Security Council meeting.

Early last month, the United States revived efforts to apprehend Rwanda genocide fugitives through their Reward for Justice Programme.

Periodical report

The ICTR chief prosecutor, Justice Hassan Jallow and other top tribunal officials  are to present their periodical report to the Council in New York on Wednesday.

Sources in Arusha told the Sunday Nation that Justice Jallow left for New York last night.

Kenya could face UN sanctions if the  Council is convinced by the ICTR that it has become a stumbling block in the manhunt for the Rwandan fugitive.

The Kabuga-Kenya saga is already on the Council’s agenda as it awaits Mr Jallow and top officials of the ICTR to present their periodic report.

Neither Attorney-General Amos Wako nor the Minister for Foreign Affairs Moses Wetang’ula were available for comment.

Mr Wetang’ula had accompanied President Kibaki on official duties in Japan.

His permanent secretary, Thuita Mwangi, was said to be in a meeting and would respond later to our queries. He had not responded by the time of going to press.

According to Korir’s interview, Kabuga, who left Kenya in March, is ready to negotiate an agreeable surrender with the Rwandan government and is ready to face justice in Rwanda but not Arusha.

According to the API chief editor, the 73-year-old fugitive wants the Rwanda government to listen to his side of the story so that an arrangement may be reached in the same way the Sudanese leader Riek Machar has mediated between the Ugandan government and the  Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

“He is very specific on what he wants. Kabuga has a person in mind that he would appreciate as the mediator in the talks between him and the government of Rwanda”, Korir added.

“I am getting old now and would like to be back in my country before my health lets me down”, Kabuga is quoted as saying in the interview.

Explaining why he wants talks to reach  an agreement with the Rwandan government when he knows the international court wants him on serious crimes, he said  he has diabetes and would not like to be captured while in hiding because whoever finds him would most probably manhandle him without consideration of his health.

Things I will reveal

“I have to get a special kind of food because of my diabetes, and that is what I want to be taken into consideration by the government during the talks.

“I know I will be useful to the government if they accept to negotiate with me. There are things that I will reveal to them.

“Things that will help them achieve their goals in punishing the real killers of our people. I am just picked on because of hatred. You know people get jealous when you are not poor.”

And in the interview, the fugitive states that he has lived in Kenya for many years and travelled in and out of the country using different names.

But now he wants to come clean and face what he calls “reasonable justice meted by my countrymen and not foreigners.”

He says a number of senior security personnel in Kenya always knew of his whereabouts and were good to him.

However, he complains he had to part with a lot of money every month to satisfy their demands.

Some of the people have even helped him obtain travel documents in time of need.

“I bought houses for three security men and gave a lot of money to others who wanted to establish private businesses that they will be engaged in when they soon retire,’’ he said.

Kabuga claims to have left Kenya in a hurry as the officers had become greedy and wanted more and more money while some even started to threaten him with arrest if he did not become more generous.

One evening at 11 p.m., two officers summoned him to a car park near Carnivore and warned him of a possible arrest because two of his protectors had been transferred to another province and could no longer be around to intervene whenever there were discussions about what to do with him, Kabuga said.

He said the two men advised him to seek refuge elsewhere because if he were to be arrested in Kenya, it would become an embarrassment to the government, and those who have protected him all these years would easily be targeted.

The fugitive also blames the changes in Kenya politics and the post-election violence for hastening his departure from Kenya.

He claims the politics and violence in Kenya had affected his businesses and properties in the country.

Shifting allegiance

“The political situation was also not conducive any more because my friends are shifting allegiance because of the political landscape,’’ he said.

But even as Korir claims to have interviewed Kabuga, questions abound how Kabuga could have allowed a journalist to interview him without fear of being sold out for the US$5 million (about KSh 310 million) bounty on his head.

The Rwandan daily New Times wondered  whether “Kabuga and his handlers had suddenly changed into choir boys” to put their faith in journalists.

The last journalist who attempted to lure Kabuga into a snare set up by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Nairobi, William Munuhe was found dead in his house in Karen with a bullet in his head.

“What guarantees would Kabuga give Kipter Korir that he would not be treated like his compatriot and fellow scribe Munuhe when he agreed to meet?” the newspaper asked.

But Korir said he could not risk giving away Kabuga because his life and that of his family would have been in danger.

“You know how dangerous the man can be if you betray him! Money is not everything”, the API chief editor said in a telephone interview.

Rwandan prosecutor general, Martin Ngoga ruled out negotiations with Kabuga.

But the seizure of some of Kabuga’s property and freezing of his accounts in Nairobi seemed to satisfy US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Clint Williamson.

“This is a welcome development, but it is our strong hope that this represents only a single step towards still more aggressive action from all governments in the region to capture these men”, Mr Williamson was quoted as telling New Times.

A senior diplomat involved in the hunt for Kabuga claimed the fugitive was using the newsletter to throw the ICTR off his trail by claiming he is in Europe.

The diplomat dismissed Korir as “phony”.

Seize property

He also said Kenya’s move to seize Kabuga’s property in Nairobi and freeze one of his bank accounts was an attempt to hoodwink the tribunal that the country was co-operating with ICTR to bring Kabuga and his fellow accomplices to book.

The A-G and Wetang’ula’s office are said to be in possession of a letter from the tribunal asking Kenya to co-operate with ICTR in having Kabuga arrested.

It is on this basis that Kenya is believed to have moved on Kabuga’s property and account to demonstrate that it is co-operating with the tribunal.

But the move seems to have backfired as the ICTR expected Nairobi to take action on other properties in Kenya it said belong to Kabuga.

The diplomat warned that should the tribunal mention Kenya negatively at the Council, there could be serious repercussions, including sanctions.

“The UN Security Council has force of law, and it could put sanctions on Kenya for not co-operating with the ICTR”, the diplomat added.

But another diplomat said it was possible that Kabuga may have found his way into Norway using fake travel documents and was exploiting the Schengen Agreement on internal borders among 29 European nations to hide in one of the Nordic countries.