Gahima haunted by his evil past – Rights activist

KIGALI - Gerald Gahima, a former Prosecutor General, is an anarchist who meted out terror to people who expected justice from him, Tom Ndahiro, a leading researcher and human rights activist has revealed. Ndahiro said yesterday that Gahima, who left Rwanda in 2004 after defaulting on hundreds of millions of francs in bank loans, used his office to detain people without trial.“The irony is that Gahima is preaching the rule of law which he never practiced,” Ndahiro added. He was responding to Gahima’s allegations that appeared in a document titled Rwanda Briefing, released last week, that Rwanda’s judiciary is not independent. The document is also authored by Kayumba Nyamwasa, Patrick Karegeya and Theogene Rudasingwa.They claim that the ruling government has become intolerant and dismissive of constructive criticism. “Gahima left Rwanda with an endless list of enemies. He used to force people to make false accusations against innocent people,” Ndahiro, who worked closely with Gahima as human rights activist, explained. “He is a miserable failure. He arrested many innocent people even after the court acquitted or granted them bail,” said Ndahiro. Ndahiro said Gahima’s reign of terror while Prosecutor General is still fresh in the minds of many Rwandans; he has no moral authority with which to guide Rwandans.During his reign, Gahima insisted on circumventing the normal legal procedures; instead of acting as a custodian of the law, Gahima turned oppressor. “Some judges were forced to resign. He portrays himself as an angel, yet he was a terror and I find this so horrible.”Instead of strengthening judicial institution to be independent, Gahima was deliberately undermining it, Ndahiro explained. Prosecution speaks out The Office of the Prosecutor General said that it has become a habit for people who have failed in life or committed various crimes, to come up with wild claims against the judiciary to win public sympathy. It described Gahima’s attack on the prosecution as highly reckless and wasteful. By the time of Gahima’s departure, he had been blacklisted by all the banks in the country.“He had created an institutional terror that defied every known norm,” says the National Public Prosecution Authority Spokesperson, Augustin Nkusi. Nkusi explained that Gahima’s abuses range from illegal detentions to sitting on the board of a Bank under investigations. “Rwandans know very well that his tenure as Prosecutor General marked the dark spot and brought the institution to the deepest of disgrace,” Nkusi said in an interview with The NewTimes. Nkusi said the prosecution rejects Gahima’s accusations and dismiss them with the contempt they deserve. “The judicial reforms we had are being implemented to the letter, and the mess he left is no longer. Rwanda doesn’t have such a short memory to consider him a redeemed person.” Ends