Rwandan President Paul Kagame (C-R) receives Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel (C-L) in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, on April 6, 2019. Michel arrived in Kigali on Saturday for the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. (Photo:Xinhua)

Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga, who is accused of funding militias that massacred about 800,000 people, was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 26 years on the run, the French justice ministry said.

The 84-year-old, who is Rwanda's most-wanted man and had a $5 million US bounty on his head, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, according to the ministry.

French gendarmes arrested him at 0530 GMT on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.

Kabuga was indicted in 1997 on seven criminal counts, including genocide, complicity in genocide and incitement to commit genocide, all in relation to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, according to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).

Rwanda's two main ethnic groups are the Hutus and Tutsis, who have historically had an antagonistic relationship and fought a civil war in the early 1990s.

A Hutu businessman, Kabuga is accused of funding the militias that massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and their moderate Hutu allies in 1994.

"Since 1994, Felicien Kabuga, known to have been the financier of the Rwandan genocide, had with impunity stayed in Germany, Belgium, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, or Switzerland," the French ministry statement said.

His arrest paves the way for the fugitive to come before the Paris Appeal Court and later be transferred to the custody of the international court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands and Arusha, Tanzania. He would then be brought before UN judges, said IRMCT. 

Two other Rwandan genocide suspects, Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya, are still being pursued by international justice.

Reuters