A Rwandan court is on Wednesday due to hand down a verdict in the state security trial of detained former president Pasteur Bizimungu, whom prosecutors would like to see behind bars for the rest of his life.
Bizimungu, a Hutu who was appointed as a figurehead president in the wake of the 1994 genocide and served until forced out of office in 2000, has been charged with threatening state security along with seven other suspects, including his former transport minister Charles Ntakirutinka.
The two main suspects have been detained since the stop-start trial began in October 2002.
All seven suspects pleaded not guilty on May 19, a day after the prosecutor’s office urged the court to sentence Bizimungu to a life jail term.
His lawyer, Jean-Bosco Kazungu, has insisted no proof has been offered to back the ”unfounded” charges against the former president, which also include fraud, diverting state resources and illegal possession of a weapon.
The main state security charge is linked to his attempt to set up a political party with the alleged aim of overthrowing the Tutsi-led government of former rebel chief President Paul Kagame.
Bizimungu himself argued in court that this related to a law covering political parties rather than the penal code used in the prosecution’s case.
When he set up his party, the former president was accused of ”ethnic divisionism,” a highly emotive term in a country still reeling from the genocide, when about 800 000 people were killed because of their ethnicity and where overt references to ethnicity are discouraged.
Human rights groups and some diplomats in Kigali claim the case against the former president is politically motivated.
”The prosecutor has been overzealous,” said one Western diplomat on Tuesday, asking not to be named.
”The authorities are in a tricky position: they can hardly acquit Bizimungu after keeping him in jail for two years, but at the same time he enjoys the support of some the public,” the diplomat added.
Hutus make up about 85% of Rwanda’s population, against 14% for Tutsis. – Sapa-AFP