Mugesera yet to name lawyers

Three weeks to his court appearance, Léon Mugesera hasn’t found lawyers to represent him in court. Following his deportation, the Nyarugenge Intermediate Court, gave Mugesera two months to get lawyers of his choice before his trial gets underway in substance. The Genocide suspect currently detained at Kigali Central Prison, is supposed to make his second appearance in court on April 2. He was in January deported from Canada“Immediately after the court granted him two months to get lawyers, we facilitated him with communication means to reach out to his Canadian lawyers who were handling his case when he was still in Canada,” said John Bosco Siboyintore, the Head of Fugitive Tracking Unit. “I visited him a few days ago, he told me he was in contact with certain lawyers but hadn’t confirmed. The agreement is, he will have to officially inform us when he gets the lawyers:. He will foot his own bills if he flies in foreign lawyers,” Siboyintore said.Previous media reports from Canada had indicated that Mugesera’s family released a statement requesting the Rwandan government to provide him financial and legal assistance necessary to enable him to pay his lawyers when his case resumes in April.In an earlier interview with The New Times, the Prosecutor General, Martin Ngoga, said the only way for Mugesera to get legal assistance is through the Rwanda Bar Association.“The only arrangement under which he can get a lawyer under our resources is if he applied and arranged with the Rwandan Bar Association for a Pro Bono representation. If he wants his Canadian lawyers whom he says he trusts more, he is free to have them but using his own resources,” Ngoga said.The first time Mugesera appeared in Court on February 2, he was temporarily defended by Donat He is charged with three counts of; planning the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, inciting the public to commit Genocide and distribution of weapons.Mugesera, a former leader of the then ruling party, MRND, in Gisenyi, is accused of giving an incendiary speech in which he incited the killing of Tutsi ‘scum’ and throwing their bodies into River Nyabarongo, a tributary of the Nile, as a shortcut to Ethiopia where, he alleged, they came from.

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Mugesera yet to name lawyers