By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A court in Kigali on Monday sentenced a former Minister of State for Culture in Rwanda, Edouard Bamporiki to five years imprisonment on corruption related charges and ordered him to pay a fine worth Rwf30 million.
The former Minister had appealed the decision of an intermediate court in Nyarugenge in September last year, which sentenced him to 4 years in jail for graft and abuse of office.
Following accusation of receiving a bribe worth Rwf5million from local businessman Norbert Gatera, the Minister was suspended from the federal cabinet in May last year.
He had received the illicit funds from the businessman, with a promise of helping him reopen his closed alcohol factory.
According to the prosecution counsel, the former minister had earlier received a bribe worth Rwf 10 million from the same businessman, promising to assist in securing his wife’s release from police custody. Gatera’s wife was facing charges related to corruption as at that time.
After more than three months of being held under house arrest, (from May to September) Bamporiki was arraigned before the intermediate court of Nyarugenge, which found him guilty of fraudulent acquisition of another person’s property and abuse of the authority given to him by the law.
He was subsequently sentenced to four years in jail and ordered to pay a fine worth Rwf60 million, a decision that both the prosecution and defendant appealed against.
Among other things, his appeal was based on a claim that the prosecution failed to explain how he abused the authority given to him by the law, urging the court to quash the charges against him.
He pleaded guilty to the charge of fraudulent acquisition of another person’s property and his lawyer Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana, called for a suspended jail term and reduction of the Rwf60 million fine to Rwf30 million.
However, during a High Court ruling on Monday, the judges resolved that his appeal did not have reasonable grounds, saying there was an overwhelming evidence linking him to having committed both crimes and thus handed him a 5-year jail term.
