Gasabo primary court on Tuesday, September 21 ruled to release Canisius Bihira a senior economist who was detained late August over fraudulently obtaining other people’s property. According to court, the decision was motivated by a number of facts, including the fact that he had agreed to pay and he paused no flight risk. “There is evidence to suggest the suspect might have committed the crime, but considering that he has accepted to pay back his debtors, and that he is diabetic and therefore needs to live with his family, he is hereby granted bail, ” read the court document. However the judge ordered the suspect to present himself to the prosecutor handling his case once every month. The prosecution charged Bihira with sensitizing people to invest in his company AFADE (Agence Africaine Pour le Developement et l’Environnement KANANI PROJECT) but the investors never got what they were promised. Each of the investors was asked to buy shares of Rwf500,000 with an additional service fee of Rwf70,000. The company owned by Bihira promised them to provide consultation for their projects and a funding of between Rwf2 and 3million in three to four weeks after the payment. For low income earners, they were being asked to buy shares of Rwf50,000 and a service fee of Rwf10,000 and promised consultation services and a funding of Rwf200,000. However, fourteen shareholders did not get the funding as promised and hence reported the case to authorities, leading to Bihira’s arrest. Hence, the prosecution based its arguments on the above evidence and also added that Bihira himself admits that he is the company’s owner. However, the two lawyers of Bihira, Callixte Twagiramungu and Jean Maurice Munyentwari rejected the allegations saying that the case was supposed to be handled as a civil matter and not criminal in nature. “I admit that there was failure to pay back the shareholders, but that was an internal error from one of my employees, but since I am the founder of the company, I accept to take on the burden and pay back the debts,” said Bihira during the proceedings. In an interview with The New Times, Callixte Twagiramungu, one of Bihiras lawyers said that he is glad that principles of fair justice were upheld and released his client.
