After 26 years on the run, Felicien Kabuga, alleged to have been a leading figure in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has been arrested in Paris, France's public prosecutor's office and the police announced on Saturday in a joint statement.

Kabuga, now aged 84, once one of Rwanda's richest men and accused of financing the genocide, has been living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine on Paris suburbs, said the statement.

Kabuga was indicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 on seven counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, persecution and extermination, all in relation to crimes committed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) hailed the arrest. Its Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz stated that "the arrest of Felicien Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even twenty-six years after their crimes."

Following the completion of appropriate procedures under French law, Kabuga is expected to be transferred to the custody of the Mechanism, where he will stand trial, said The Hague-based IRMCT.

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