File picture shows Ingabire being led to the Rwandan High Court as the fourth week of her trial began in Sept 2011/AFP
“She has been sentenced to eight years for all the crimes that she was found guilty of,” judge Alice Rulisa told the court, adding however that she was innocent of another charge of “calling for another genocide.”
Rulisa said the leader was found guilty of the “crime of conspiracy in harming authorities through terrorism and war” as well as denial of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
The genocide denial charges against Ingabire were triggered by remarks she made in January 2010 at the memorial to the estimated 800,000 people, the majority of them Tutsis, who were killed in the slaughter.
Ingabire, herself a Hutu and the leader of the Unified Democratic Forces (FDU), a political grouping that has not been allowed to register as a party, said it was time Hutu war victims were also commemorated.
She refused to attend the hearing on Tuesday, and chose to remain in jail where she has been held since October 2010.
Her British lawyer Iain Edwards said they would appeal the conviction, which he called a “disappointment.”
“We thought she would be acquitted of all charges, but we will appeal, first to the Supreme Court and then, if that fails, we will go to the African Court on Human and People’s Rights,” he said, referring to a court based in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.
“We thought she would be acquitted of all charges, but we will appeal, first to the Supreme Court and then, if that fails, we will go to the African Court on Human and People’s Rights” – lawyer.
Ingabire returned to the country from exile in The Netherlands in January 2010, and shortly after called for the trial of those responsible for the deaths of Hutus in the genocide.
During the trial, prosecutors showed what they said was evidence of Ingabire’s “terrorist” activities, including proof of financial transfers to the FDLR, a Hutu rebel movement based in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ingabire, who denied all the charges, was accused of “giving financial support to a terrorist group, planning to cause state insecurity and divisionism.”
Ingabire’s FDU have accused Kigali of fabricating evidence against its leader to prevent her from participating in the political life of the small central African country.
She boycotted her trial mid-way through proceedings after the court cut short a witness who accused the Rwandan authorities of rigging evidence against her.
The witness, a former spokesman of the Hutu rebel group the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), said Rwandan intelligence services had offered money to rebels to make false claims over Ingabire’s ties with the group.
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