In Summary
Kigali, Saturday. A Rwandan
court on Friday sentenced popular musician Kizito Mihigo to 10 years in
prison for conspiracy against the government of strongman President Paul
Kagame.
Mihigo was also found guilty of “forming a
criminal group” and “conspiracy to commit murder”, but judge Claire
Bukuba threw out charges of complicity in a terrorist act.
Mihigo, 35, who pleaded guilty to the charges, is a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Prosecutors said he was “in charge of mobilising
the youth” for the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), an opposition party
in exile, as well as the FDLR, Rwandan Hutu rebels who include the
perpetrators of the genocide in their ranks and who are based in the
forests of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mihigo’s lawyers, who said prosecutors had little hard evidence, had pressured him to plead not guilty.
He was tried alongside journalist Cassien
Ntamuhanga, demobilised soldier Jean Paul Dukuzumuremyi and Agnes
Niyibizi, who was accused but found innocent of having been an RNC
treasurer.
Ntamuhanga was sentenced to 25 years in jail,
Dukuzumuremyi was sentenced to 30 years. Both have denied all charges.
Niyibizi was acquitted on all charges.
Police said the men planned attacks in revenge for
the assassination of a former spy chief and fierce critic of Kagame,
Patrick Karegeya, who lived in exile in South Africa and who was found
strangled to death in a Johannesburg luxury hotel on New Year’s Day.
The arrest of the four in April, came as Rwanda
held commemorations to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide, the
murder of 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, at the hands of
Hutu extremists.
But it also came amid mounting criticism of Kagame and accusations his government is cracking down on those who speak out.
(AFP)
(AFP)
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