Rwanda reacts to Kagame bodyguard's murder
May 31, 2019
Nkurunziza fled to exile in South Africa after accusing Kagame of planning to rule Rwandans by force, torture of opponents and Kagame also accused him of planning a coup.
RWANDA SOUTH AFRICA MURDER
A minister in Rwanda has said the murdered former bodyguard of President Paul Kagame was killed during a robbery in South Africa.
Rwanda's Minister of State in for Foreign Affairs in charge of the East African Community Olivier Nduhungirehe confirmed the killing of Camir Nkurunziza, but noted that he was killed while on a robbery mission, in a tweet.
"So, Nkurunziza, a member of terrorist organizations RNC of Kayumba Nyamwasa then FLN of Nsabimana, was also a hijacker in South Africa. He was killed yesterday evening by the Goodwood Police while resisting arrest with a knife. Once a criminal, always a criminal," Nduhungirehe said.
Nkurunziza was on Thursday evening shot dead in Cape Town in South Africa. Sources in South Africa who spoke to Saturday Vision revealed that Nkurunziza was shot dead together with a colleague he was travelling with in their private car. His death is similar to that of Seth Sendashonga, Rwanda's former interior minister, who was gunned down in his car in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on May 16, 1998.
Nkurunziza is a brother of Sergeant Innocent Karisa who was kidnapped from Uganda by Ugandan police and handed over to Rwanda after being accused of recruiting for the Rwanda National Congress.
Nkurunziza fled to exile in South Africa after accusing Kagame of planning to rule Rwandans by force, torture of opponents and Kagame also accused him of planning a coup.
He later joined the RNC but by the time of his death, he was linked to the recently arrested Rwandan dissident Callixte Nsabimana alias Sankara of the National Liberation Movement (NLM).
Nkurinzinza's death comes hardly a week after Kagame visited South Africa for the swearing in Ceremony of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Kagame in an interview with the media accused the dissidents in South Africa of being responsible for his sour relationship with Uganda.
No suspects had been arrested yet by Friday. However Kagame critics who spoke to Saturday Vision noted that the killings had hallmarks of Rwandese intelligence.
Rwandese Ambassador to Uganda Maj. Gen Frank Mugambage denied the killings. "Where did you get it from? I have no idea about it," he said
This would not be the first time, Rwanda has been linked to the killings of dissidents opposed to Kagame. In 2013, former Rwandan intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya was found strangled at a hotel in South Africa.
A South African media quoted Police sources saying that Nkurunziza had been shot in the Goodwood suburb of Cape Town and that he was part of a gang of hijackers who had pounced on an unsuspecting victim.
In April this year, a south African Court ruled in the inquest into the 2013 murder of Karegeya that the four suspects linked to the murder were known and "directly linked" to Rwanda's government. The four men include Appollo Ismael Kiririsi, Samuel Niyoyita, Nshizirungu Vianney and Alex Sugira are all Rwandan nationals who fled South Africa shortly after the murder.