The trial of journalist Phocas Ndayizera and his 12 co-defendants continued on Wednesday, 5 February 2020, in Nyanza, Rwandan South Province. It was the turn of the three defendants to present their arguments. Eliakim Karangwa, the first to speak, retracted his confession, which he said he confessed as a result of “the conditions in which he was”. The Rwandan investigation Bureau, the RIB, also asked him to charge journalist Phocas Ndayizera with promising that he would be released in return. Only one of the three defendants, Patrick Niyihoza, has admitted having been in contact with Cassien Ntamuhanga.
In the counter-terrorism section of the Nyanza court, the facts referred to by Eliakim Karangwa, a technology expert, have been added to the long list of confessions obtained under pressure or the list of fabricated false evidence to incriminate innocent people.
During the investigation, the RIB asked him to charge journalist Phocas Ndayizera, by admitting that he had to help him make the explosives from spare parts such as the fuse or other pieces. Phocas Ndayizera, who also retracted his confession obtained under torture at the previous hearing, was supposed to have these parts with him. In return, the Rwandan judicial police had promised Karangwa to release him. Together with Ndayizera, they wanted to set up a project to make an agricultural machine to water the fields and make fertilizer. The buyer was a Kenyan who had made an advance payment of US$600 on the US$1500 needed for the project. For the RIB this sum came from Cassien Ntamuhanga, a journalist and former Rwandan political prisoner, who is living in exile since his escape from a rwandan prison. Ntamuhanga is also currently the coordinator of Abyaryankuna -Rwandan Alliance for The National Pact.
Eliakim Karangwa had agreed to confess because he knew he could prove in court where the money came from. He also said that he had made the confession under pressure because he was disoriented (questioned in a place where he did not know where it was) and blindfolded. It should be recalled here that the twelve co-defendants of Phocas Ndayizera remained missing, without their families knowing where they were for a month. They miraculously reappeared at the journalist’s first public hearing.
According to Eliakim Karangwa’s lawyer, the prosecutor has no evidence to prove that Ndayizera and Karangwa had a conspiracy plan against the ruling power nor the one that establishes an agreement with Ntamuhanga.
Only one of the three defendants who spoke at the hearing, Patrick Niyihoze, admitted having had contact with Cassien Ntamuhanga. Since the journalist had gone into exile, he had been phoning him to ask him to round up other young people to help them find work. He was arrested when he went to Nyagatare, near the Ugandan border, to meet a Ugandan man. It was Ntamuhanga who put him in touch with the Ugandan. According to the judicial police, he would “be taken to the RNC rebellion (an opposition political party operating in exile)”.
Phocas Ndayizera and his co-defendants are members of Abaryankuna. in Rwanda the political opposition is banned. As Abaryankuna is a political resistance movement, they are charged on this ground. One of the fears of the RPF, the ruling party of Paul Kagame, who has been in power for more than 25 years, is that Rwandans will eventually revolt and demand respect for their fundamental rights. Young people involved in politics are regularly arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned, assassinated or reported missing.
The next hearing is scheduled for early April 2020.
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