Life in prison for RFI journalist

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CANKUZO, Burundi, June 27 (UPI) -- A Burundi court has sentenced a Radio France Internationale correspondent to life in prison for complicity in a terror attack, the defendant's attorney said.

On June 20, Hassan Ruvakuki, along with 13 others, was found guilty of complicity in a deadly November attack by the Forces for the Restoration of Democracy on the eastern Burundi town of Cankuzo, RFI reported Wednesday.

Ruvakuki, RFI's Swahili correspondent, was accused of giving publicity to the attack by interviewing the FRD rebel leader in Tanzania prior to the raid.

"I don't know why they were in such a hurry to jail a journalist who was only doing his job," said Pacifique Nininahazwe, of the Forsc coalition of rights groups. "In fact, the problem in this country is that the judicial system is not independent."

Ruvakuki's lawyer, Onesime Kabayabaya, said his client plans to appeal the ruling, but had not been able to do so because the court had not given him an official copy of its judgment, RFI said.