Rutana: a prisoner was caught during sexual intercourses, the prosecutor rounds up prison

Prisoners were forced to pay a sum of 20,000 francs each. A sum collected to buy the silence of the public prosecutor in Rutana (South-eastern Burundi). The prosecutor surprised, in a prison office, a prisoner having sex with a girl from outside the remand center. In order not to make a big story out of it, the official allegedly demanded money. Prisoners find this fundraising “illegal”. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The incident date back to last Sunday when a prisoner known by the nickname of Jegeza was caught by the public prosecutor in Rutana having sex with a girl in a prison administration office.

According to sources close to the prison, the prosecutor would have been informed by the prison staff.

The girl was taken to the Rutana communal police station cell and the prisoner was returned to his cell.

The girl was released two days later on payment of bribes, according to a source at the police station in Rutana.

According to prison staff sources, the prison director later accused the prisoners of disclosing the case to the prosecutor.

This Tuesday, the director of the prison in collaboration with a person in charge of the detainees and a commissioner forced any prisoner to pay a sum of 20 thousand Burundian francs.

All prisoners who could not find this money were stripped of their belongings including clothes.

A sum of around 10 million Burundian francs has been collected, according to our sources.

Prisoners and their families explain that they sold chickens and goats in order to “recover the confiscated property”.

The prison staff accuses the prison management of providing a place for prisoners who want to have sex for a sum of 350,000 francs to “rent an office as a room”.

Detainees say they have always been victims of illegal money collection. They ask the General Directorate of Penitentiary Affairs to “put an end to the abuses of which we are victims”.

Rutana’s prosecutor and the director of the prison were not available to react to these allegations.