Rwanda: Prosecution Seeks Five Years for Former Rwanda Governance Board Boss

6 December 2022

The prosecution on Tuesday requested judges at Nyarugenge Intermediate Court to hand a five-year prison sentence and a fine of Rwf 3 million to Emmanuel Nibishaka over charges of fraud and using forged documents.

Nibishaka is a former Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Rwanda Governance Board (RGB).

During the hearing in substance, the prosecution which was represented by prosecutor Charles Kayove said that last year, on various occasions Nibishaka collected about $ 22,100 approximately Rwf 24,050,988 from different people with a promise to help them get visas to the US for studies.

In addition, he forged the invitation which invited them to meetings in the US as well as emails using another person's account.

The defendant also altered the date and destination of a previous travel clearance and used it to travel to Kenya, allegedly after getting wind of the criminal case against him.

Usually, senior civil servants are required to seek authorisation from the Prime Minister's office before traveling out of the country.

Kayove concluded by requesting the court to convict him on both crimes and sentence him to five years in jail as well as a fine of Rwf 3 million arguing that they asked for a shorter sentence because he has been cooperative since his arrest.

Nibishaka admitted all the charges saying that he didn't come to defend himself, but to apologize and requested a suspended sentence to be able to refund the victims.

In addition, Nibishaka also pointed out that those people wanted help from him because they knew others he had helped, partly because he had previously lived in the US.

After listening to all parties, the presiding judge set the ruling for December 14.

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