The National Forensic Laboratory, which is under construction, will be operational by late 2017, according to Police Spokesperson, ACP Celestin Twahirwa. Twahirwa said the long-awaited forensic facility will be an important addition to providing scientific evidence by significantly slashing down the cost of evidence-gathering, hence properly prosecuting criminals and giving justice to victims in a reasonable time. Previous reports from Police indicated that Rwanda spends about Rwf800,000 to ship a single sample to Germany or the UK. This explains why the Government invested Rwf7 billion towards the construction of a forensic laboratory in Kigali. The facility, which was initially allocated Rwf6 billion, was supposed to be up and running by 2015, but the deadline hit a dead-end due to a number of factors, including finances which were not-readily available at the time. However, Twahirwa said that the procurement process of DNA test laboratory equipment, among other forensic laboratory materials, is ongoing and materials should be shipped to Rwanda as soon as all the paperwork is done. Forensic science is a discipline that applies scientific analysis to the justice system, often to help prove the events of a crime, by analysing and interpreting evidence found at the crime scene. The evidence can include blood, saliva, fibres, tire tracks, drugs, alcohol, paint chips and firearm residue (cartridges) and others. Producing deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly known as DNA results, has been one of the most challenging element of justice in Rwanda, according to Twahirwa. Engineers working on the structure are putting the final touches on the inside of the laboratory rooms and, “the entire facility should be ready for occupancy by late 2017”, according to one of the engineers, who preferred anonymity. “This is an important element of justice in our country and we expect it to be up and running by 2018 latest,” Police spokesperson Twahirwa reiterated. Police spokesperson reiterated that, “the process of construction of forensic rooms and acquisition of forensic machines is on-going very fast. The procurement process has started and the estimated time for doing DNA laboratory test and the rest of forensic tests to be ready is 2018, but it could be before then.” “We have been facing issues to do with scientific evidence for some cases, for example, where accidents have occurred and putting together different body parts for a single body, for proper burial, is quite challenging, plus reconciling a certain child’s deoxyribonucleic acid with the parents, if something contentious about the relations occurred, and reconciling crime evidences, among others.” Currently, the Police Hospital is the only local facility that can run postmortem test at the “highest level” according to Twahirwa. Twahirwa added that DNA and other forensic tests were mainly done in Germany, with provisions for other few selected places, which he said was “very much expensive” for both the institution and to any individual who wanted to carry out DNA test. While appearing before the parliamentary standing committee on unity, human rights and fight against Genocide earlier in the week, the Minister for Internal Security, Sheikh Musa Fazil Harerimana, told parliamentarians the people who will work in the laboratory are about to finish training in Germany.
