Judge says no ‘serious reasons’ to keep Kimanuka and co-accused in detention

NYARUGENGE - After over a week in detention, Oscar Kimanuka, the Director General of ORINFOR, the state-owned media body, was yesterday granted provisional release by the Nyarugenge Court of High Instance.

Kimanuka was detained on April 18 on charges of corruption and flouting tendering procedures, but according to the court, there lacked sufficient incriminating evidence pinning him and his accused so as to be kept in detention during the course of the investigations.

"Following Kimanuka’s defence and submissions by prosecution, and as stipulated by the law, there is no need to keep in detention suspects who are found not to harbour any criminal intentions within the case they are accused of, the court orders that Kimanuka be released temporarily with immediate effect as investigations go on,” pronounced Judge Jacques Kanyarukiga who presided over the session.

There was relief on the faces of many people including friends and family who had thronged the courtroom to witness the ruling.

Also released on bail is Alexandre Twahirwa, the Marketing Manager of ORINFOR who is also facing embezzlement charges.

Some of the charges against Kimanuka include authorising a new contract for the installation of the new printing machine, a contract worth over 600,000 Euros (Approx Rwf 921m) to Colin Enterprise, the company that supplied the machine despite an earlier contract that also catered for the installation.

However, according to Athanase Rutabingwa, Kimanuka’s lawyer, the additional contract was for the preparation of the ground and the place where the machine was to be installed.

"It was the duty of the buyer, which is ORINFOR in this case, to prepare where the machine was to be installed, not the supplier and the additional cost had to be met by ORINFOR,” Rutabingwa said.

The initial cost of the machine, which also included its installation was 1.2 million Euros.

"There wouldn’t be a better person to do this work other than the supplier, who knew the specifications, and the supplier had initially been awarded the tender through single sourcing, which was done in this case,” he said.

According to Rutabingwa, there was no indication that Kimanuka caused any loss to government for personal gains as alleged by the prosecution.

"There is no way this money can even be traced to my client because it was directly wired by Deutche Welle (a German broadcasting corporation) to the supplier.”   

Prosecution also alleges that Kimanuka authorised commissions to ORINFOR employees amounting to Rwf 244m since 2007 despite these employees earning their official salaries.

To this, the lawyer said that these commissions were put in place to increase the production of the company which was evidenced in the returns obtained; "but even the board (of directors) was well aware of this because it had been discussed.”

Court also found that Kimanuka never intended to divert money into his pockets but the charges arose out of managerial inconsistencies which the Board of Directors oversaw.

Subsequent to Kimanuka’s arrest, the Minister dissolved the ORINFOR board which was chaired by Paul Mbaraga, and deputised by Henriette Zimurinda.

Other members were Prisca Mujawayezu, Anaclet Kalibata, Rosemary Mbabazi, Joseph Habumukiza and Nkubito Bakuramutsa.

Investigations will however continue to ascertain the accusations.

Article 95 of the Penal code also states that not until the court finds ‘strong evidence’ underlying, such as embezzlement or intended diversion of public funds, the suspect is set free until there is enough evidence to implicate the accused in totality, hence the bail application was allowed.

Meanwhile, the prosecution said that they were disappointed by the judge’s order to release Kimanuka.

"We had sufficient evidence against both accused, but court decided to release him. We just learnt of the development and have not received a copy of this order…we will have to go through it again to decide on our next step,” said prosecution spokesperson, Augustin Nkusi on phone.

He said that at the moment, they could not determine whether they would appeal against this decision until they study the contents of the verdict.

Ends