09.07.12 - ICTR/KENYA - DOCUMENTARY CLAIMS KENYAN INTELLIGENCE PROTECTED KABUGA

Nairobi, July 9, 2012 (FH) - Kenyan television station NTV broadcasted on Sunday a documentary claiming that the country’s army and intelligence services hid and protected Rwandan genocide fugitive, Felicien Kabuga, as late as 2008.

"In the footsteps of Felicien Kabuga" is the result of five months of investigations in Kenya and Rwanda. It claims that the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) and the Kenyan military formed a squad to protect the most wanted genocide suspect. The ICTR has indicted him for genocide, and the United States has put a five million dollar bounty on his head.  

According to the documentary, Michael Sarunei, a Kenyan army officer who was part of Kabuga’s bodyguard, secretly took pictures of the fugitive while admitted in a Nairobi hospital in 2008. Sarunei has since disappeared. According to a relative, he has been killed after the pictures he took were found by one of his colleagues who alerted Kabuga and his protectors in government.

NTV showed three of these pictures to Rwanda’s prosecutor-general Martin Ngoga, who confirmed they were of Kabuga, though 18 years older than widely circulated pictures of him.

The Kenyan government, which has long denied the existence of Kabuga in Kenya, rejected the new allegations.  “This particular government has not been aware of anything to do with the protection of Mr Kabuga. We are working very closely with the Rwandan government to ensure that this man is arrested,” government spokesman Alfred Mutua told the Daily Nation.

The United States and the ICTR have repeatedly claimed that Kabuga has been hiding in Kenya, but the government has rejected the accusations and asked for evidence to prove the allegations.

BB/GF

 

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