Rwanda not behind attacks on opposition, says official

Photo | AFP
Rwandan President Paul Kagame greets his supporters during his election campaign on Friday in Nyamirambo, Kigali. In Kenya, exiled Rwandan rebels called for the rejection of the outcome of tomorrow’s presidential elections in which Kagame is the clear favourite.

What you need to know:

  • Prosecutor general says Kagame regime has nothing to gain by launching attacks on dissenters

Kigali, Saturday

The Rwandan government was not behind a series of attacks carried out against its opponents in recent weeks, prosecutor-general Martin Ngoga told AFP in an interview.

“What does the government stand to gain by launching attacks on opposition politicians? I think they (the opposition) gained more. The government is not behind these attacks,” he said.

“I don’t know why anyone would suggest the state is involved even when the outcome of the investigations is there,” he said.

He said the brutal killing of Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, a relatively little-known politician from the opposition Green Party had been “grossly misinterpreted.”

Rwisereka’s half-decapitated body was found dumped by a river in mid-July.

“This man was a victim of crime,” he said, adding that investigations are ongoing.

“The indications we have so far are that this has nothing to do with him being a politician,” he said, adding: “The level of brutality should be enough to de-link the state from the crime.”

Both UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon and the European Union condemned Rwisereka’s killing and urged authorities to conduct a full investigation.

General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame who fell out with his former boss, narrowly survived being shot in the stomach after fleeing to South Africa.

His suspended newspaper

South Africa has suggested foreign agents might have been involved in the shooting, but did not say from which country they came.

Ngoga said that far from being the work of the Rwandan government, the shooting was a setback to his country’s attempts to have Kayumba extradited.

The journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage was shot shortly after the website of his suspended newspaper claimed to have uncovered the regime’s responsibility in the attempted murder of Nyamwasa. Ngoga said those involved in Rugambage’s killing were on trial.

Rugambage “was implicated in the genocide in a case in which he allegedly killed the manager of a local bank. He was in custody for three years. The person we are prosecuting now is a brother to Rugambage’s victim,” the prosecutor said.

He also denied using delaying tactics in the case against Victoire Ingabire, an opposition politician who was prevented from running in tomorrow’s presidential election and who is facing charges of negating the 1994 genocide and associating with rebels from the democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

“There is no delaying tactic,” he said, adding Rwanda is waiting to hear from the countries it contacted and from which people working with Ingabire transferred money to the FDLR.

“We cannot start the case here until those countries are through (with their investigations),” he said.

He argued Ingabire was not under house arrest as she says, but rather on bail. “Every bail has its conditions and hers are she should not go out of Kigali.”

“The situation she’s in now is bail whose conditions can be relaxed or strengthened depending on how she conducts herself.” (AFP)