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.
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