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Judge grants Kimanuka bail after a week in jail

Saturday May 02 2009

The director general of Kigali-based Rwanda’s state-owned information agency ORINFOR, Oscar Kimanuka, has been granted bail after a week in detention.

Mr Kimanuka, a former columnist with The EastAfrican, and his co-accused marketing manager Alexandre Twahirwa, were released on Wednesday afternoon by the Nyarugenge Court of High Instance on what was referred to as “provisional release.”

Mr Kimanuka who is also a former official speech writer for President Paul Kagame, was detained on April 18 on charges of corruption and peddling influence in the agency’s tendering procedures.

He is the latest victim of the government crackdown on senior government officials suspected of corruption and abuse of office.His arrest prompted Louise Mushikiwabo, the Minister of Information, to dissolve the ORINFOR board.

ORINFOR is the French acronym for the government agency that runs RTV, the state television, Radio Rwanda and two newspapers namely Imvaho Nshya and La Nouvelle Releve.

The prosecution had alleged that among other things, including unlawfully awarding contracts, Mr Kimanuka authorised commissions to ORINFOR employees amounting to $443,636 since 2007 despite these employees earning their official salaries.

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However the presiding judge Jacques Kanyarukiga, quoting from Rwandan law and referring to the submissions from the prosecution ruled that Mr Kimanuka deserved bail.

Judge Jacques Kanyarukiga said, “… there is no need to keep in detention suspects who are found not to harbour any criminal intentions within the case they are accused of, the court orders that Mr Kimanuka be released temporarily with immediate effect as investigations go on.”

According to the judge there was lack of sufficient incriminating evidence.

Article 95 of Rwanda’s Penal Code states that not until the court finds ‘strong evidence’ underlying, such as embezzlement or intended diversion of public funds, the suspect is set free until there is enough evidence to implicate the accused in totality, hence the bail application was allowed.

The Nyarugenge Court also found that Mr Kimanuka never intended to divert money into his pockets but the charges arose out of managerial inconsistencies which the Board of Directors oversaw.

The New Times, Rwanda’s only English daily said that some of the charges against Mr Kimanuka include grossly authorizing a new contract for the installation of the new “Goss” printing machine, in a contract worth over 600,000 Euros.

According to The New Times Mr Kimanuka issued the contract to Colin Enterprise, the company that supplied the machine despite an earlier contract that also catered for the same.

The news daily also quotes Athanase Rutabingwa, Mr. Kimanuka’s lawyer as saying that, the additional contract was for the preparation of the ground and the place where the machine was to be installed.

Mr. Rutabingwa is quoted as saying, “It was the duty of the buyer, which is ORINFOR in this case, to prepare where the machine was to be installed, not the supplier and the additional cost had to be met by ORINFOR.”

“There wouldn’t be a better person to do this work other than the supplier, who knew the specifications, and the supplier had initially been awarded the tender through single sourcing, which was done in this case,” he said.

This according to Mr. Kimanuka’s lawyer had no indication that his client caused any loss to government for personal gains as alleged by the prosecution.

“There is no way this money can even be traced to my client because it was directly wired by Deutche Welle (a German broadcasting corporation) to the supplier,” he said.

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