On 13 July 2017, dozens of police officers burst into the home of Germain Rukuki of the Association of Catholic Jurists of Burundi (AJCB) and ACAT-Burundi. He was first detained at the National Intelligence Service, where he was interrogated without a lawyer before being transferred to the overcrowded Ngozi prison. He remained in pre-trial detention until 29 April 2018, when he was sentenced to 32 years in prison for ‘undermining state security’ and ‘participating in an insurrectionary movement’. His sentence was confirmed on appeal on 17 July 2019. After his sentence was quashed by the Burundi Supreme Court, the Ntahangwa Court of Appeal sentenced him to one year in prison on 21 June 2021. He was finally released on 30 June 2021.