Rwandan Hutu rebel Callixte Mbarushimana, sought for war crimes in the DR Congo, arrived in the Netherlands from Paris on Tuesday.  He is set to have his initial appearance in front of International Criminal Court judges later this week.

“He arrived an hour ago, and is on his way to the detention centre close to the Hague,” Pascal Turlan, the spokesman for the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor said.

Turlan further said that Mbarushimana would make his initial appearance before a pre-trial chamber “either Thursday or Friday this week.” The chamber will officially inform Mbarushimana of the charges against him, and a date for the start of the trial will be decided upon.

“It usually takes between three to four months for the actual trial to start,” Turlan said.

Mbarushimana, 47, was arrested in Paris on October 11 on an ICC warrant. The court accuses him of five crimes against humanity and six war crimes including murder, rape and torture committed in Eastern DR Congo in 2009. He is alleged to have been the executive secretary of the FDLR Hutu rebel group.

A Paris court rejected earlier this month Mbarushimana’s appeal against his detention and transfer to The Hague. He had lived in France as a political refugee since 2002.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Tuesday Mbarushimana’s transfer to the ICC. In a statement, he said this was “an excellent example of how international and national criminal courts can work together, in accordance with the principle of complementarity, to fight impunity and ensure that those alleged to have committed serious international crimes are held accountable.”

The crimes Mbarushimana is suspected of were allegedly committed during a series of "widespread and systematic attacks" by FDLR fighters against civilians in the North and South Kivu provinces, according to ICC prosecutors.

He is accused of "personally and intentionally contributed" to plotting "widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population in order to create a humanitarian catastrophe".

Some Hutu rebels who are members of the FDLR are accused of having participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which around 800,000 people were killed. Most of them were ethnic Tutsis.