A Rwandan man was reportedly being sought on Friday by South African police in the death of former Rwandan spymaster Patrick Karegeya, whose body was discovered in a plush Johannesburg hotel on New Year’s Day.
According to the opposition Rwandan National Congress coalition and the local New Age newspaper, the man was the last person to be seen with Karegeya.
However, police would neither confirm nor deny it, saying they were chasing several leads.
Members of the Rwandan opposition claim Karegeya was assassinated at the behest of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
The New Age quoted Karegeya’s nephew, David Batenga, as saying that he and Karegeya had picked up a Rwandan man at a light-rail station on Sunday last week and taken him to the Michelangelo Towers hotel in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton.
Batenga said he had left the men after a few hours and tried to call Karegeya on his cellphone on Tuesday evening, but received no response.
The police were alerted when Karegeya’s cellphone was still switched off the following morning, the newspaper reported.
Karegeya was found dead in the man’s hotel room on Wednesday. Police suspect he might have been strangled. His neck was swollen, and a rope and bloodied towel were found.
Theogene Rudasingwa, Washington-based coordinator of the Rwandan National Congress, said in a telephone interview on Thursday: “We have been told the guy who was last seen with Patrick was from Rwanda, a Rwandan whom Patrick knew, who used to go to Rwanda and come back. I think he pretended to be Patrick’s friend.”
HIT SQUAD
The name of the Rwandan national reportedly being sought by police was on a list of seven people claimed in a blog run by Rwandan dissidents to belong to a hit squad sent to South Africa to eliminate Karegeya. The blog said its information came from informers.
Karegeya, the former head of Rwanda’s external intelligence service, had been living in exile in South Africa for more than five years after falling out with Kagame.
Rudasingwa described Karegeya’s death as an assassination that fit a pattern of attacks against prominent opponents of Kagame. The Rwandan government has vehemently denied it targets opponents for assassination.
Gunmen also twice tried to kill Rwandan former chief of army staff Lieutenant General Kayumba Nyamwasa while he was living in exile in Johannesburg in 2010.
‘HUNTED’
Nyamwasa said in 2012 that Kagame has hunted him and other dissidents around the world, “using hired killer squads.”
In a brief telephone interview on Friday, he was reluctant to say who he believed was behind the killing of Karegeya, his friend and former colleague.
“We are not sure. It’s too early to say. We’re still busy piecing all the information together. I believe we should wait for the outcome of the police investigation before commenting on the matter,” Nyamwasa said.
Rwandan High Commissioner Vincent Karega told local broadcaster eNCA on Thursday that talk of assassination is an “emotional reaction and opportunistic way of playing politics.”
He urged people to wait for the police report in South Africa.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS