Rwanda police arrested a major opponent of President Paul Kagame on Friday. Victoire Ingabire faced questioning about nine people accused of learning ways to remove the government without violence. The Rwanda Investigation Bureau charged her with forming criminal groups and turning citizens against leaders. Officials want to try her alongside the other defendants already facing court proceedings. They did not say when formal charges might happen.
Ingabire denied connections to the accusations during Thursday court hearings. Her political party DALFA-Umurinzi never organized or paid for such training sessions according to her testimony. She claimed prosecutors tried linking separate events that had nothing to do with each other. Some defendants were people she knew but that did not prove her involvement. The case appeared designed to create false connections between unrelated activities.
The opposition leader already served eight years behind bars for questioning official genocide stories. Around 800,000 people died during the 1994 killings that devastated the country. Kagame reduced her 15-year sentence in 2018 but kept her banned from running for office. She failed to overturn the election ban last March before Kagame won 99 percent of votes.
Ingabire denied connections to the accusations during Thursday court hearings. Her political party DALFA-Umurinzi never organized or paid for such training sessions according to her testimony. She claimed prosecutors tried linking separate events that had nothing to do with each other. Some defendants were people she knew but that did not prove her involvement. The case appeared designed to create false connections between unrelated activities.
The opposition leader already served eight years behind bars for questioning official genocide stories. Around 800,000 people died during the 1994 killings that devastated the country. Kagame reduced her 15-year sentence in 2018 but kept her banned from running for office. She failed to overturn the election ban last March before Kagame won 99 percent of votes.
