The High Court in Nyarugenge will on Wednesday, January 18, start hearing an appeal in the case involving Wang Yang Jian, a Chinese national who is accused of raping his former employee in 2018 at a restaurant in Kigali.Jian was acquitted in 2019 after a judge in the Nyarugenge Primary Court ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to pin him. The plaintiff appealed the verdict.Part of the evidence presented before the court were medico-legal reports showing forced sex and testimonies from police officers that reported on site to rescue the victim in the middle of the night of the alleged incident.The victim was working for Jian at his restaurant, Beijing Restaurant and Hotel in Kiyovu as a waiter. It is where the rape allegedly happened, hardly a month after she started working there.The case in 2019 gained national attention when a member of the plaintiff’s family wrote on Twitter expressing the victim’s frustration on how long it was taking for justice to be served.“My cousin was tied down and raped by her boss in Kigali. She called the police after and they reported immediately. She received medical care and evidence of rape was collected the same day. It’s been more than two months today and she hasn’t been called to court,” the family member wrote on her twitter account in January 2019.The reactions to the tweet came in fast, with the then Minister for Justice, Johnston Busingye intervening and instructing the Prosecutor General to follow up.The Prosecutor General at the time, Jean Bosco Mutangana told The New Times in an exclusive interview that his office was following up on the case and the suspect was summoned by investigators, released, and re-arrested.Until June 2019, the defendant was seeking bail because he “couldn’t eat Rwandan food served in prison.”Bail was denied, but he eventually was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence.
