The leader of yet to be registered FDU-Ikingi political party, Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire has finally been granted her wish for the beginning of her trial in September – as prosecution again accused her of wasting time.
Before the start of her trial, Ingabire pleaded that her team needed more time to study more than 2,500 pages of documents. And because two of her three lawyers are British, the documents also had to be translated into English as all have been prepared in Kinyarwanda.
Amongst the many serious charges, Ingabire is accused of promoting ethnic divisionism, setting up of a terrorist organization and collaborating and financing the Rwandan FDLR rebels in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Three of the prosecution’s top witnesses are also accused along with Ingabire. They are former FDLR commanders who have alleged that Ingabire had engaged them to start a rebel force in eastern DRC.
In Court, Ingabire repeated her previous quest for four months to work on her defense. She said the prosecution dossier had information coming from different countries including Belgium, The Netherlands and Burundi.
Public prosecution spokesperson Alain Mukurarinda said in a statement, “we are ready to begin the trial as soon as the defense is fully prepared. Our country respects the rights of the accused to a fair and speedy trial”.
After a brief consultation, the Judge ruled that the trial could begin on September 05, 2011. In the earlier appearance in May, Ingabire has actually asked for time up to September. For the meantime she will be back in jail until the agreed hearing date. This story was first published by the Rwanda News Agency.
Leave a Reply