The accomplices on the same charges are Thabita Gwiza Mugenzi, Xaverine Mukangarambe, Edmond Bushayija also known as Sacyanwa and Jean Paul Turayishimiye all living outside Rwanda.
According to the Rwigaras lawyers, prosecution did not interrogate those accomplices before submitting the case file to court.
Lawyer Gatera Gashabana representing Adeline Rwigara said that prosecution should summon accomplices before the hearing resumes.
Prosecution said that they don’t have known addresses for them to send summons.
The presiding judge asked prosecution whether accomplices were interrogated and prosecution replied that when a suspect goes missing they can be prosecuted in absentia.
Prosecution said the law allows them to submit a case file for suspect at large and the court orders that person to report, regardless to whether they were interrogated or not. According to prosecution despite having not been interrogated, the accomplices should be prosecuted.
According to Lawyer Pierre Celestin Buhuru, Rwigaras’ accomplices were not pursued. He said that court should go through the process and inform them that they have a case in court.
Buhuru said that hearing would continue two months after realizing whether they will report to court or not.
Gashabana said thatprosecution had earlier said that one of co-accused lives in Boston, USA, and presented their phone number. He questioned whether the prosecution does not know where a person who they have phone number lives.
At the prosecution side, Faustin Nzakamwita said that having submitted the suspect’s phone number in the case file doesn’t mean that they got it from the owner.
For Buhuru, prosecution submitted a case file with six suspects but he and Gashabana are representing only two of them.
After two hours for deliberation, the presiding judge decided that the Rwigara co-accused should be summoned or the case file gets separated.
According to the presiding judge, though prosecution says that Gwiza lives in Toronto, Canada; Mukangarambe in USA; Bushayija in Belgium and Turayishimiye in USA, these are not complete addresses. As the law permits two months to summon a person, the presiding judge set the next hearing on July 24th 2018.
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