{{An appeal court in Burundi has reduced the life sentence of journalist Hassan Ruvakuki to three years after scrapping his conviction on a terrorism charge.}}<\/p>\n
The court found the reporter guilty of working with a criminal group, not a terrorist movement.<\/p>\n
Ruvakuki has always maintained his innocence, saying he was arrested simply for looking into reports that a new rebel group had emerged in Burundi.<\/p>\n
The country is recovering from a civil war which officially ended in 2005.<\/p>\n
Some 300,000 people are said to have been killed in the 12-year conflict between the minority Tutsi-dominated army and ethnic Hutu rebels.<\/p>\n
Ruvakuki, who worked for local radio station Bonesha FM and French state broadcaster Radio France Internationale, was given a life jail-term in June 2012 by the High Court.<\/p>\n
It ruled that he took part in an armed attack in 2011 on a village in eastern Cankuzo province near the Tanzanian border.<\/p>\n
Fourteen gunmen who participated in the attack were killed.<\/p>\n
The sentence sent shockwaves across the country, with rights groups claiming that President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government was taking a heavy-handed approach in dealing with dissenting voices.<\/p>\n
Mr Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader who won elections when the civil war ended, defended the sentence at the time.<\/p>\n
“Before someone is a journalist he is a Burundian,” he said.<\/p>\n
{BBC}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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