Musanze Intermediate Court on Tuesday threw out a case filed against law-enforcement agencies that had been filed by four grassroots leaders and security personnel attached to District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), all operating in Musanze District. The defendants in the case were Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB), Rwanda National Police (RNP) and National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA). The plaintiffs are themselves suspects in another case and had dragged the three state agencies to court over what they called illegal arrest, which occurred after they had been granted bail in their own case. They include Jean-Paul Sebashotsi Gasasira, executive secretary of Cyuve Sector; Jean-Léonidas Tuyisabimana, executive secretary of Kabeza Cell in Cyuve, as well as DASSO officers Anaclet Nsabimana and Sylvain Abiyingoma. The four were dramatically re-arrested on June 11, just a day after they had been granted bail by Musanze Intermediate Court. They were arrested from the compound of Musanze prison on their way out. While filing the lawsuit, the quartet argued that the three law-enforcement agencies violated the law by ignoring the court’s order granting them bail pending a substantive trial and went on to re-arrest and detain them, at Muhoza Police Station. Neither plaintiffs nor defendants were in the courtroom as Olive Uwase - the presiding judge read out the court decisions on the lawsuit. In her ruling, Uwase underscored that the four were rearrested for separate charges of bribery, which were separate from the assault charges they originally faced. During the hearing last week prosecution had said that these men were rearrested because they attempted to bribe judicial organs in an effort to thwart their own prosecution. She therefore ruled that RIB did not violate any rights while re-arresting them. Uwase disqualified all the motives that the plaintiffs had presented and ruled that they remain in detention. The suspects face assault charges after they were captured in a video that went viral on social media platforms, assaulting two citizens who reportedly ignored the Covid-19 directive to wear face-masks. In the video, the accused were vividly seen battering the victims – a man and woman – in with multitudes of people spectating along Musanze-Kinigi road with some residents begging for a mercy on behalf of victims.
