Ex-president appeals against imprisonment

Rwanda's first post-genocide president, Pasteur Bizimungu, appeared before the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking to quash a 15-year prison sentence handed down to him by a lower court.

A Court of First Instance convicted Bizimungu in June 2004 for inciting civil disobedience, embezzling state funds and forming a militia group. He received a sentence of five years imprisonment for each of these three charges.

Bizimungu has said the charges are politically motivated. He told the Supreme Court that he was detained and put on trial on charges different from those for which he was arrested.

"I was arrested for allegedly forming an illegal political party," he said. "However, this charge has never appeared before the courts."

Instead, he said, the new charges were a fabrication.

Bizimugu's trial started in April 2003 after one and half years in detention but the prosecution accuse him of deliberately derailing the proceedings through two appeals he filed - one seeking bail and the other seeking dismissal of the charges. The Supreme Court had rejected both appeals.

The prosecution is appealing against a treason charge, of which the lower court had cleared Bizimungu. The prosecution also wants the charge of illegal possession of a firearm and 40 rounds of ammunition reinstated against Bizimungu.

As a head of state, Bizimungu - from the majority Hutu community - was considered a symbol of reconciliation in Rwanda, after the 1994 genocide in which mainly Hutu militias and soldiers killed some 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

In 1990, Bizimungu rallied to the mainly Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, which seized Kigali and routed the genocidal forces in July 1994.

Bizimungu resigned from the presidency in 2000 after falling out with members of his government. Throughout his presidency, he remained in the shadow of his more powerful vice-president and current president, Kagame, who was defence minister at the time.

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its verdict a month after the hearing of the completion of the case.