Prosecution disappointed by Ingabire sentence

Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga acknowledged yesterday that prosecution was unhappy with the eight-year jail term handed to Victoire Ingabire by the High Court.Ingabire, 44, was on Tuesday sentenced after court found her guilty of terror charges and denying the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.She was convicted of two counts of Genocide denial and conspiracy and planning to cause state insecurity, and was acquitted of four other charges that included genocide ideology, promoting ethnic divisionism and supporting armed groups.“The general feeling at NPPA [National Public Prosecution Authority] is that we are not comfortable with some findings as well as punishment,” said Ngoga, when contacted yesterday for his comment on the Tuesday ruling.A leader of FDU-Inkingi, a political party that has hitherto failed to fulfil necessary requirements for registration, Ingabire has been in detention since 2010, and she was arrested following evidence pining her to working with some elements outside the country to launch subversive attacks on the Rwandan territory.Ngoga did not explicitly say they would appeal against the verdict, saying they were still weighing the option.“As a party to the case, we too have the right to challenge it (the decision) at a higher level,” said Ngoga, in an exclusive interview held in his office in Kigali.The same ruling saw Ingabire’s four accomplices- all former officers with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia group- handed varying prison sentences.Capt. Jean Marie Vianney Karuta was sentenced to two years and seven months, Lt. Col. Tharcisse Nditurende and Lt. Col Noel Habiyaremye got three and half years while Maj. Vital Uwumuremyi was sentenced to three years and a half and a two-year suspended sentence.They had all pleaded guilty.Upon pronouncing the verdict by the High Court panel led by Alice Rulisa, in an exercise that took four hours, Ian Edwards, a British attorney that worked on Ingabire’s defence team said she would appeal.The appellate authority in this case is the Supreme Court, the highest jurisdiction of the land.“We are continuing to analyse (the verdict) in depth, after which we shall decide whether to appeal or not,” Ngoga said.Asked whether he faulted the court for the ruling, Ngoga was quick to state that his institution has respect for the court. “The court made a decision within its competence and within the framework of the law.”Mitigating circumstances During the ruling, Rulisa averred that the judges took into account a letter written by Ingabire, to President Paul Kagame seeking clemency.In May this year, it emerged that Ingabire, who had lived in Netherlands for over a decade before returning to Rwanda in 2010, beseeched the President “asking for clemency.”It is in this letter that the three-person panel found a mitigating factor, thereby reducing her jail term to eight, saying she had expressed remorse for the actions for which she was convicted.However, a legal pundit who followed closely the case but requested anonymity said the judges, should never have considered the letter, because it was never attributed to court.“The context of this letter was misplaced, because as far as I know, it was never addressed or attributed to court, and having followed all the proceedings, I don’t remember seeing Ingabire showing any remorse in all appearances she made in court,” said the observer.Ingabire appeared in court until May, when she decided not to return to courtroom, saying the judiciary was not impartial.Meanwhile, Ngoga was more cautious when asked about what he thought was the main area of contention in the verdict.“We shall look at our points of disagreement with the findings (contained in the verdict) and that is what will inform our future decision. But generally speaking, prosecution was not satisfied with the judgement,” he said.Contacted yesterday, Gatera Gashabana, one of the defence lawyers for Ingabire, said he was yet to confer with his client to see the way forward despite earlier assertion by Edwards that they would appeal.“We need to get the written verdict, which we were told would be available within five days after the verdict, we need to carefully look at it and until then I cannot comment on the ruling,” Gashabana said on phone.Meanwhile, other experts say that even if the mitigating factors were justified, the punishment meted out on the two counts Ingabire was convicted of carried a much heavier sentence, as a principle of precedence.Ingabire, returned to Rwanda in January 2010 with an ambition to stand for the presidential elections which were held in August that year.Part of her charges were drawn from a speech she gave at Gisozi Genocide Memorial, where her utterances, which included insinuation that there had been double genocide in Rwanda, were seen as trivialising the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.Subsequent accounts from her co-accused pinned her for coordinating with them, at times sending them money to organise subversive activities aimed at destabilising Rwanda.