Rwandan prosecutors said Tuesday that a former presidential candidate and fierce critic of President Paul Kagame had been charged with stirring insurrection against the state as well as other grave offenses.
Provisional detention was requested for Diane Rwigara, who was blocked from challenging Kagame in August’s presidential election, as well as for her mother Adeline Rwigara and her sister Anne Rwigara.
“The charges include forgery of documents and signature counterfeiting by Diane, sectarian practices by Adeline Rwigara and inciting insurrection for all the three,” a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office said.
Rwigara is the daughter of Assinapol Rwigara, an entrepreneur who made a fortune in industry and real estate, and a benefactor of President Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) during its efforts to topple the Hutu extremist regime in 1994, ending the Rwandan genocide.
Diane Rwigara later distanced herself from the RPF and President Kagame after her father’s death in a car accident in 2015, which she has claimed was an “assassination”.
