Rwanda Gives Prosecutors 30 More Days for Case Against Ingabire

A Rwandan court gave prosecutors an extra 30 days to complete their investigation into charges of terrorism leveled against opposition leader Victoire Ingabire.

The “extension is necessary to allow our international partners to act on the formal requests for legal assistance that the Prosecutor General’s office sent to them,” Augustin Nkusi, a spokesman for the prosecution, said in an e-mailed statement today.

Ingabire was arrested on Oct. 14, and appeared in court Oct. 25, when she denied charges of working with terrorist groups and threatening state security. The case against the leader of the United Democratic Forces was scheduled to begin 30 days from Nov. 12, when the high court upheld a lower court’s decision to deny her bail.

Prosecutors are waiting for evidence from the Netherlands and Switzerland that Ingabire wired money to members of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, a mainly Rwandan Hutu rebel group operating in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Ingabire has denied the allegations.

Ingabire returned to Rwanda in January after being exiled for 16 years. She said her party had been blocked from registering to field candidates in August’s presidential elections, which were won by incumbent Paul Kagame by 93 percent.

About 800,000 people died in the 100-day slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu militias and government officials during the 1994 genocide.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Malingha Doya in Kigali via Johannesburg at 1934 or asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.