Court 'needs more time'
2006-01-17 13:49
Kigali - Rwanda's Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed by one month a ruling in the case of the country's first post-genocide president Pasteur Bizimungu, saying it needed more time to consider his appeal against criminal convictions and a 15-year jail sentence.
Chief Justice Aloysie Cyanzaire said the court, which had been expected to give its verdict on Tuesday after concluding the appeals hearing on December 6, required additional time to deliberate on the case, which Bizimungu and seven co-convicts claim is politically motivated.
"Considering that the case involves a number of convicts and given that several issues arose during the hearing, the court finds it necessary to postpone the case to analyse what was said and to properly formulate the ruling," he said.
"For these reasons, the ruling has been postponed to February 17," Cyanzaire said.
Bizimungu, 55 and Rwanda's president between 1994 and 2000, was convicted in June 2004 after he was found guilty of incitement to civil disobedience, embezzling state funds and criminal association.
But he, alongside his former transport minister Charles Ntakirutinka and six other co-defendants are appealing the convictions, which they maintain are political, as well as their jail sentences.
Charges 'not proved'
They argue the charges stemmed from their attempt to form a new political party in 2002 that was promptly declared illegal by Rwandan authorities.
Defence lawyers argue that the charges were not proved at trial and have asked the Supreme Court to overturn the convictions and throw out the sentences.
But prosecutors maintain that they are all guilty and instead deserve longer jail terms than those handed down by the trial court, asking the Supreme Court to convert Bizimungu's 15 years, as well as Ntakirutinka's 10-year term and shorter sentences given to the six others, to be extended to life.
Bizimungu, a Hutu, was installed as Rwanda's president in a gesture of reconciliation by the Tutsi rebel group that seized power in 1994 and put an end to three months of genocide in which some 800 000, mainly Tutsis, were slaughtered.
But he was hounded out of office four years later and succeeded by his more powerful vice-president and defence minister, current President Paul Kagame, whose Rwandan Patriotic Front had initially made Bizimungu head of state.
The prosecution of Bizimungu and his co-defendants has been criticised by human rights groups, which say the circumstances of their arrests, conditions of detention and the trial itself fell far short of international standards.