The High Court has postponed reading the verdict in Edouard Bamporiki’s appeal case to Tuesday, January 23. Since September last year, the former minister of state for culture has been battling charges related to receiving a bribe worth Rwf 5million from local businessman Norbert Gatera, on the promise of helping him reopen his alcohol factory. He was apprehended in May last year and put under house arrest for almost 3 months, after which he was arraigned before the intermediate court of Nyarugenge. The judges at the court found him guilty of fraudulent acquisition of another person's property and abuse of the authority given to him by the law. He was consequently sentenced to four years in jail and ordered to pay a fine worth Rwf 60 million, a decision that he appealed in the High Court. ALSO READ: Prosecution narrates how Bamporiki was caught red-handed as his graft trial opens Among other things, his appeal was based on a claim that the prosecutors failed to explain how he abused the authority given to him by the law, thus, he asked the judges to drop this particular charge against him. For the charge of fraudulent acquisition of another person’s property to which he had pleaded guilty, his lawyer Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana called for a suspended jail term and reduction of the Rwf 60 million fine to Rwf 30 million. According to Harrison Mutabazi, the Spokesperson of the Judiciary, the postponement was due to the fact that the case was “still under the judgment process of writing.”
