The High Court Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes (HCCICC), on Thursday, January 20 acquitted five men suspected of plotting terrorism activities on Rwandan territory through an Islamic fundamentalist movement.

According to prosecution, the five defendants, all Muslims, conducted research, held meetings and discussions about Hizb ut-Tahrir (translated as Party of Liberation), a movement of Muslim fundamentalists bent on liberating itself from governments and establishing an Islamic state that follows Islamic principles.

The movement is an international Pan-Islamic political organisation with an aim to re-establish the Islamic caliphate to resume Islamic ways of life in the Muslim world.

The defendants - Amran Rumanzi, Abdallah Kabengera, Yazid Nizeyimana, Justin Uwimana alias Omar and Ibrahim Rurangwa are said to have committed the acts in 2012 in Kicukiro, Kigali, as they hatched the idea of establishing the principles of the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement in Rwanda.

Issuing the verdict, the HCCICC ruled that the acts committed by the group do not qualify to be called terrorism.

This is because, in Rwandan law, an act of terror is: "Any deliberate act which is a violation of the criminal laws and which may endanger the life, physical integrity or freedoms of, or cause serious injury or death to, any person, any number or group of persons or causes or may cause damage to public or private property, natural resources, environmental or cultural heritage and is calculated or intended to:

"Intimidate, instill fear, force, coerce or induce any government, body, institution, the general public or any segment thereof, to do or abstain from doing any act or to adopt or abandon a particular standpoint or to act according to certain principles; disrupt any public service, the delivery of any essential service to the public or to create a public emergency; create general insurrection in a State.”

Here, the judges noted that, the acts committed by the 5 men neither violated the criminal laws, nor endangered life, physical freedoms or caused serious injuries or death to people, among characteristics of terrorism.

Basing on this, the court acquitted them and ordered their immediate release.