Rwanda: The prosecutor seems to ignore where the Interim Secretary-General of FDU-Inkingi is detained!
Rwanda: The prosecutor seems to ignore where the Interim Secretary-General of FDU-Inkingi is detained!
Kigali , May 27, 2013.
On Monday, May 27, 2013, Mr. Sylvain Sibomana, the Interim Secretary-General of FDU-Inkingi, and Dominique Shyirambere, were supposed to appear before the High Court of Kigali. The hearing did not take place due to the absence of all of the defendants. As a reminder, Mr. Sylvain Sibomana is detained in Muhanga Prison while Dominique Shyirambere is held in Remera prison.
The court was meant to hear both parties the plaintiffs and the defendants, on the extension of the provisional detention of 30 days which expired before the appeal hearing session was held. In his ruling, the judge of Kabuga Intermediary Court had ordered that the accused should be detained in Remera prison. Such a court's ruling was simply ignored given the fact that on May 18, 2013, Mr. Sylvain Sibomana was forcibly transferred to Gitarama.
This transfer seems to be a delaying tactic aimed at preventing their case from being heard in a court of justice. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that the government takes away the defendants from the prisons to which the court has assigned them to prevent them from showing up in courtroom on the day of their hearing.
When the court noted the absence of the accused, the defense counsel, lawyer Claude Munezero, asked why his clients are not being held in the prison to which the judge assigned them, namely, the Remera prison. He regretted the fact that such a court's decision was ignored by the prison authorities. When the prosecutor was asked about their current location of detention, he seemed to ignore it.
The party FDU-INKINGI once again regrets that court's decisions are torpedoed by occult orders to prison authorities in order to obstruct subpoenas by refusing to organize the transfer of detainees.
Mr. Sylvain Sibomana and Dominique Shyirambere were arrested on March 25, 2013, within the premises of the Supreme Court where they had come to attend the political trial of Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, FDU-Inkingi's Chair. Their obvious presence at the trial, which the authorities had hoped that it would be discreet, landed them the accusation of holding unauthorized public protest and of attempted subversion against the regime.
FDU-INKINGI
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President
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