The Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko told a Nairobi court Tuesday Kenya, being UN member-state required to comply with any request from the Arusha-based UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), trying key suspects of the genocide. The April-July killings claimed lives of about 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
If a country declines to co-operate, the ICTR has a mandate to draw attention of the UN Security Council for proper action to be taken against it.
The ICTR Prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, in December last year requested the Security Council to press on Kenya to do more to apprehend Kabuga.
Last May, the Kenyan Attorney General's Office went to court and obtained orders freezing Kabuga's dealings in the upmarket Spanish Villas.
But Kabuga's wife, Mukazitoni, wants the Nairobi Court to set aside or vary the orders restraining Kabuga, Kenya Trust Company and herself from selling, collecting rents or disposing off the property.
Mukazitoni, who resides in Belgium, says she owns the villas. Through her advocate, Mr Kennedy Ogeto, she says ICTR statutes, which the Attorney General relied on to obtain the orders, have not been domesticated, according to Kenya media reports.
ICTR maintains that intelligence reports point that the most-wanted fugitive Kabuga was hiding in Kenya and allegedly that he was using his wealth to interfere with the work of the Tribunal.
Kabuga, 74, has US $5 million bounty from the United States government for his arrest.
Kabuga and his wife are believed to have vast interests in Kenya, including transport companies, real estate, hotels and farming.
Kabuga, who is alleged to be using Kenya as one of his hideouts, has been on the run since 1994; he is one of the ICTR's big fish who is still at large.
Kabuga was last sighted in Kenya on June 28, 2006 at the Lavington residence of a former Kenya Cabinet minister. He is believed to frequent Europe and African countries such as Madagascar, Gabon and Kenya.
Kabuga was in 1994 expelled from Switzerland and went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) before seeking refuge in Kenya, where he has escaped several attempts to arrest him.
He has also changed his names several times to Faracean Kabuga, Idriss Sudi, Abachev Straton, Anathase Munyaruga, or Oliver Rukundaku
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© Hirondelle News Agency