On May 16, Félicien Kabuga, the businessman accused of financing the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, died at the age of 91 in The Hague, Netherlands. His death comes as a relief to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), which after Kabuga was deemed unfit to stand trial, had been unable to find a host country for him.
The IRMCT faces a serious dilemma: upon its potential closure in June, at the end of its current mandate, some of its functions – including archiving, the repatriation of acquitted and released individuals currently in Niger, and the enforcement of sentences for its prisoners in Benin and Senegal – could be transferred to Rwanda. This is despite the concerns of NGOS and those affected about the country’s human rights record.
The decision now rests with the Security Council of the United Nations, which is currently in crisis and under pressure from US budget cuts.
The choice on archives
After the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) closed in 2015, the Mechanism was envisioned as a small, temporary, efficient structure, whose functions and size were to diminish over time. But it quickly turned into a “white elephant”: costly, opaque, and oversized.
Renewing the Mechanism’s latest two-year mandate on June 27, 2024, the Security Council urged it to produce “clear and focused projections of completion timelines for all of the Mechanism’s activities including, in particular, in relation to ongoing cases and the supervision of the enforcement of sentences at the earliest possible stage, and to provide options regarding the transfer of its remaining activities in due course”. It also asked the Secretary-General “to report to the Security Council by 31 December 2025 on options for the transfer of the functions of supervision of enforcement of sentences and the pardon or commutation of sentences […] and assistance to national jurisdictions on prosecutions […], including the legal, budgetary, administrative and other implications of such options”.
Based on reports the IRMCT submitted to him, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made proposals on December 1, 2025, envisaging – without making a final decision – the choice of Rwanda for preservation of the archives, supervision of sentence enforcement, and transfer of acquitted and released individuals still under house arrest in Niger.
With regard to the archives, both Rwanda and Tanzania have expressed their willingness to host them. The report recommends that the Security Council consider whether the ICTR archives, including the boxes of evidence from the Office of the Prosecutor, should remain in Tanzania or be transferred to Rwanda.
Once the Security Council has made its decision, negotiations will still be needed to reach an agreement with either Tanzania or Rwanda.
Should the acquitted and released persons be returned to Rwanda?
A decision regarding the five Rwandans acquitted and released under the Mechanism’s supervision will be more complex. Niger, which had concluded an agreement with the UN to host them and allow them to remain free on its territory, reneged as soon as they arrived on its soil in December 2021. There were eight of them at the time. Three of them have since died, and their surviving colleagues allege that they died “due to the climate and isolation”. Having been under house arrest for nearly five years, the remaining five live in precarious conditions and are demanding relocation.
A decision dated November 21, 2025 by the single judge of the Mechanism notes “the Relocated Persons [in Niger] emphasize that the Rwandan Government’s diplomatic assurances are narrowly worded and do not exclude prosecutions for other criminal charges in relation to the acts forming the basis of their ICTR prosecution or other offences”.
The judge considers, however, that “Rwanda is a State obligated to accept the Relocated Persons onto its territory – as their country of nationality and origin – and that the Rwandan Government has consistently expressed its preference and readiness to accept the Relocated Persons as free citizens in Rwanda, including in its note verbale to the Mechanism and official address to the United Nations Security Council in December 2024”.
“While the subjective fears expressed by the Relocated Persons are relevant, they have not demonstrated that they are unable to relocate to Rwanda, their country of origin, if necessary, in a safe and durable manner and with specific guarantees of safety and/or regular reporting from the Rwandan Government to the Mechanism, as appropriate,” he continued. Finally, he considers that “after 31 December 2026, the Mechanism no longer has a legal and judicial obligation to provide financial assistance to the Relocated Persons, while they remain in Niger, as part of its general duty of care towards them”.
The UN Secretary-General’s report makes no recommendations regarding them.
Transferring certain prisoners to Rwanda?
On transferring supervision of sentence enforcement for ICTR convicts, the Secretary-General explicitly considers in his report transferring this function to Rwanda, provided that Rwanda bears the costs. However, “early release, commutation of sentence, and pardon are judicial functions that must be exercised by an independent international court and cannot be transferred to a Member State,” his report states.
In a statement to the Security Council, Kigali stressed that Rwanda has facilities designed to house individuals convicted of international crimes and by internationalized courts, noting that it already houses detainees from the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and that the enforcement of these individuals’ sentences is subject to inspections by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Kigali officially reiterated that it was prepared to receive them, guaranteeing their safety and offering assurances against any prosecution related to the crimes for which they have been acquitted or have served their sentences.
With regard to Benin and Senegal, the two African states currently hosting ICTR convicts, the Secretary-General suggests that further consultations would be necessary on transferring the enforcement of their sentences.
The prisoners concerned strongly oppose being transferred to Rwanda. In a nine-page letter addressed on April 6 to the President of the Security Council, they describe their “strong and deep concerns” and denounce the Rwandan government’s offer. “It is not sufficient to consider only its capacity to bear the costs of maintaining prisoners, whereas any decision of transfer must imperatively comply with applicable international obligations, in particular Articles 7 and 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which respectively guarantee the prohibition of inhuman treatment and the respect for the dignity of persons deprived of their liberty,” they write.
They cite several reports from non-governmental organizations. “Amnesty International’s 2024 report on Rwanda notes that Rwanda has once again failed to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. In addition, the NGO Human Rights, in its report for the year 2023, has identified several violations of human rights committed in Rwanda and emphasized the failure of the Rwandan Government to conduct investigations into these abuses and to prosecute those responsible. In its report of 18 July 2025, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has, more extensively and in greater detail, documented that human rights, in particular the rights of prisoners, are violated in Rwanda,” they state.
In its report on Rwanda presented at the 51st session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review on July 18, 2025, the American human rights NGO states that it has “documented allegations of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees from 2019 to 2024 in both official and unofficial facilities”.
The people stranded in Niamey and their families appointed two lawyers on April 30 to act on behalf of the detained, acquitted, and released individuals before the international community and international organizations.
“Fatigue and lack of interest”
According to Professor Filip Reyntjens, a specialist on the Great Lakes region and former expert witness for the ICTR, “fatigue and lack of interest” are behind this now-likely shift by the United Nations toward a transfer to Rwanda. “The genocide of 32 years ago no longer interests many people. People want to put it behind them,” he says. “This would obviously be a tragedy for those concerned,” he adds, noting that “the transfer of the archives, in particular those of the prosecutor’s office, could also endanger those who testified against the Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF, in power in Rwanda since 1994], who would thus become identifiable.”
All eyes are now on the Security Council, whose decision is expected this June.
