KIGALI - Gasabo Intermediate Court has released the former State Minister for Education, Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, and ordered him to pay a Rwf 500,000 fine instead.

The Kacyiru Primary Court had previously sentenced Mutsindashyaka to one year in jail for awarding EMA, a construction company, a Rwf 1.7 billion tender to build Eastern Province headquarters without following normal tendering procedures. Mutsindashyaka appealed the sentence.

"The court released him because the infringement he was accused of did not cause any loss, but the fact that there were illegal operations, it resulted into the fine,” said Charles Kaliwabo, the Spokesman of Courts. 

The court order to release the former state minister took place on Friday. Two days earlier, Nyarugenge Intermediate Court had also acquitted him of mismanagement of public funds and concealing his foreign bank accounts from the Ombudsman.

Meanwhile, the Spokesman of the Prosecution, Augustin Nkusi, could not reveal whether they will appeal or not.

"We will have to first look at the minutes of the verdicts before we decide on whether we can file an appeal or not,” he said.

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