Ngozi: life imprisonment required against two instigators of a murder including a former leader of the Imbonerakure

The prosecution requested a life sentence against two people including a former provincial representative of the youth league of the presidential party, the Imbonerakure in Ngozi (Northern Burundi).
They are accused of having ordered the assassination of a young man. He also requested 20 years in prison against two other people involved in this case. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The victim is a young man named Bernard Nsabimana killed on the night of February 4 this year.

Musafiri Niyonkuru, former representative of the Imbonerakure in Ngozi and Gérard Ntahomvukiye, a laboratory worker at the Ngozi medical center are the two defendants for whom the prosecution at the Ngozi Court of Appeal requested “life imprisonment”.

They will also have to pay compensation of 30 million Burundian francs to the family of the victim if the judge were to “apply the indictment”.

Two other men accused of complicity in the case, namely Appolinaire Miburo and a biker named Lahay Roy who were at the scene of the crime should serve 20 years in prison.

Young Bernard Nsabimana who worked in a hotel in the capital of Ngozi province was killed and had his throat slit.

The first two men were accused of being “instigators and planners of the assassination”.

The other two are accused of “failing to assist a person in danger”. Miburo admits the facts justifying his fear of being killed.

Lahay Roy was ordered by Musafiri Niyonkuru to “carry the body on his motorbike and throw it into a small Nkaka river in the Vyerwa valley in Ngozi commune”.

The trial lasted 7 hours on Monday at the provincial court. The hearing was closed by the decision to deliberate the said trial. The court will rule on January 12, 2023.

The four defendants are being held in Ngozi central prison. The case has divided CNDD-FDD officials in this northern province of Burundi, with one wing wanting to stifle it, the other preferring that justice be done.