KIGALI - The High Court has set Friday for the ruling in bail application appeal for Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the leader of the yet-to-be-registered political party, FDU-Inkingi.

A lower court had earlier rejected Ingabire’s bail application on the basis that the charges against her were serious. Ingabire immediately filed an appeal in the High Court.

The seven-hour session was presided over by High Court president, Johnston Busingye, who gave ample time to the appellant and her three-person defence team to plead their case to prove that the accused deserved the bail she was applying for. 

On several occasions, there were heated exchanges between StateAttorney, Bonavanture Ruberwa and Ingabire’s lead counsel, Gatera Gashabana, as they both kept challenging each other on legal procedures.

Gashabana questioned the authenticity of the evidence that the prosecution possesses against Ingabire, but Ruberwa hit back saying that he had concrete evidence against Ingabire which proved that she didn’t deserve bail.

"We have genuine evidence against her; although her defence pretends to question the authenticity of our evidence, Ingabire knows that the evidence we possess against her is very authentic,” said Ruberwa.

According to the prosecution, Ingabire worked with Maj. Vital Uwumuremyi, a former Ex-FAR and a commander in the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia to form the Coalition of Democratic Forces (CDF) which was to become the military wing of the FDU-Inkingi.

The court heard that Ingabire, on several occasions, met with Uwumuremyi with the aim of setting up a training program for CDF recruits, who would go on to conduct terrorist activities in the country, cause instability which would then force the government to enter into dialogue with FDU-Inkingi.

"We have the evidence and Uwumuremyi has confessed that Ingabire urged them to recruit for the terrorist organisation. She told them that FDU-Inkingi had already established diplomatic connections and had defined its political agenda,” Ruberwa said.

"What was remaining was an armed wing of the party, and that is how CDF was born. We have correspondences,  mainly emails. This was confirmed by Uwumuremyi when he was arrested on October 13,” added the prosecutor.

Uwumuremyi was arrested at the Rwanda-DRC border post of La Corniche as he tried to sneak back into DRC where he was suspected to be conducting CDF activities.

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