Africa-Press – Rwanda. The National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) has expressed its dissatisfaction with the ruling in the FLN terror trial involving Paul Rusesabagina and co-accused.
Shortly after the verdict in which Rusesabagina was handed a 25-year jail sentence, Faustin Nkusi, the Spokesperson of NPPA, welcomed the fact that none of the defendants was acquitted but moaned the lenient sentences handed to some convicts.
“To those we had requested a life sentence, they were convicted to twenty-five years, others whom we had requested twenty years, they were given five,” he told the media on Monday.
He refused to rule out possibilities of an appeal, saying that; “those are the concerns that we will need to sit down and assess, to see if we can appeal.”
Nkusi also reiterated that some charges were dropped, a decision that his institution was unhappy with. “There are suspects who had seven, nine or even fourteen charges but were also convicted with one,” noted Nkusi
Rusesabagina, the founding president of MRCD, was not present as court pronounced its judgement. His assistant, Callixte Nsabimana alias Sankara was sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty.
On the other side, prosecution had sought lengthy jail terms for the terror suspects, which were not granted. It had requested a life sentence for Rusesabagina and 25-years for Sankara. The heaviest punishment under the Rwandan penal code was also requested for Marc Nizeyimana, one of the FLN top commanders.
