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Aimable Karasira will be detained for an additional 30 days pending further investigations.
Nyarugenge Primary Court on Tuesday remanded controversial former lecturer turned YouTubers, Aimable Karasira, to a thirty-days mandatory detention pending more investigation into charges of genocide denial, possessing unexplained amounts of money.
Karasira, a former lecturer at University of Rwanda, was arrested on May 31, 2021 by Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) on a number of suspected crimes which include denial and legitimizing the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, instigating divisions done on YouTube and ‘illicit enrichment’.
The latter charge was added to his case file after law enforcement discovered that Karasira was in possession of money, whose source he could not explain.
RIB says it found $10,981, some €520, Rwf3, 142,000 in his house and Rwf11million in Mobile Money alongside many other bank accounts with exorbitant amounts of money that were not disclosed for investigative purposes.
While appearing in the initial court case hearing last month, Karasira’s lawyers informed court that their client had mental health history and had taken a mental health medical examination which holds him unfit to stand trial on the above charges.
The lawyers said that the medical results can be proof of evidence that Karasira acted in a poor state of the mind–which can be a reason to be proved innocent in court.
During the July 7, 2021 appearance, both prosecution and court agreed to wait and get the medial results before proceeding into the detention trial.
However, medical expertise results released last week indicated that Karasira was in a normal mental state.
Karasira’s lawyers Gatera Gashabana and Evode Kayitana back then contested the results presented by Dr. Chantal Murekatete, a mental health expert from the Kigali Teaching University Hospital (CHUK) saying their client should have been examined from his previous doctors (Dr. Musoni and Gafaranga) who had followed up their patients mental history for the past 18 years (since 2003).
Following these results and arguments, court said pre-trial detention will proceed basing on the medical report which they said was credible.
Today, court heard the prosecution position on which it stated that Karasira should be provisionally remanded with reason of further investigation into his case.
Court ruled in favour of Prosecution saying there are strong reasons to detain the suspect before appearing in court for an in-substance trial into the charges levied against him.
Karasira, who suffered from COVID-19 in detention but recovered from it, is expected to base on his health status to appeal the ruling in the next five working days.
