20110115
reuters

KIGALI (Reuters) - A Rwandan military court sentenced on Friday four exiled military officers, including former army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, to 20 years in prison for threatening state security.

Former allies of President Paul Kagame, the four now accuse him of wielding absolute control over the judiciary and legislature.

They include former director of cabinet Theogene Rudasingwa, prosecutor general Gerald Gahima, and Patrick Karegeya, former director of Military Intelligence. They were tried in absentia.

Nyamwasa, who fled to South Africa in February, is one of Kagame's biggest critics. Speaking on Voice of America last week, Gahima described the trial as illegal and political.

On Friday, presiding judge Brigadier General Peter Bagabo slapped Nyamwasa and Rudasingwa with an extra four years for deserting the army.

The four were jointly charged with six counts including threatening state security, undermining public order, promoting ethnic divisions and insulting the president.

The prosecution had called for a 30-year sentence for all and an extra five for Nyamwasa and Rudasingwa.

Spain requested Nyamwasa's extradition to face charges of genocide, and murder of a Spanish missionary in 1994 and three Spanish aid workers in 1997. Last year Nyamwasa and Karegeya announced the creation of a new political body called the Rwanda National Congress. The party also has Rudasingwa and a few other former high-level political and military Kagame allies now in exiled.