South Africa issues warrants for Rwanda spy chief murder

Kagame’s government implicated in killing of former intelligence head 

Rwanda President Paul Kagame’s government has been accused of using violence to intimidate opponents at home and abroad © Reuters

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Tom Wilson in London and Joseph Cotterill in Johannesburg

South Africa has issued arrest warrants for two Rwandans accused of assassinating a former Rwandan intelligence chief in Johannesburg, which is likely to bring further scrutiny to allegations that President Paul Kagame’s government has used violence to intimidate opponents at home and abroad.

Partick Karegeya, a childhood friend of Mr Kagame who rose to lead Rwanda’s external intelligence service, sought exile in South Africa in 2010 before he was found strangled in a hotel room on January 1 2014. South Africa expelled three Rwandan diplomats in response to the killing but has never brought charges for his murder despite a lengthy investigation.

Members of Karegeya’s family have accused the South African government of failing to prosecute for political reasons. However, an inquest in April breathed life into the case, ruling that a crime had been committed and that South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority needed to decide whether to bring charges.

Following that instruction, the NPA has issued warrants of arrest for two people implicated in the murder, according to Karegeya’s lawyers working with the advocacy group Afriforum. “It is a fantastic sign,” David Batenga, Karegeya’s nephew and a spokesperson for the family, told the Financial Times. “When the diplomats in question were expelled it was rewarding in a way, but it was shortlived because we expected after that there should be some action.” The NPA is now applying for the extradition of the two men, who are both believed to be in Rwanda, and will ask Interpol, the international police organisation, to issue “red notices” against the suspects, Afriforum said.

Red notices are a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and arrest a person pending extradition.  Gerrie Nels, head of the private prosecution unit at Afriforum, had promised to bring a case if South Africa’s government failed to act following the inquest.  The decision to issue arrest warrants without the need for further investigation showed that the authorities had been sitting on evidence, according to Mr Nel. “The only feasible conclusion is that the NPA wanted to avoid a prosecution,” he said.  During the inquest, an officer with South Africa’s special investigative unit testified that the probe had identified the suspects, who had left South Africa immediately after the crime, and linked the men “directly” to the Rwandan government.

South Africa’s national prosecuting authority and the Rwandan government did not respond to separate requests for comment. Recommended The Big Read Rwanda: where even poverty data must toe Kagame’s line

Human rights advocates have frequently accused the Rwandan government of sending agents overseas to silence critics. However, high-profile deaths in unusual circumstances, such as that of Karegeya, have failed to result in prosecutions.  Four men were convicted of the 2010 attempted murder of Kayumba Nyamwasa, Rwanda’s former army chief and another exile in South Africa. Mr Nyamwasa was shot when returning home and though the court said it believed the attack had been politically motivated it did not prove that the instruction came from that Rwandan government. 

Mr Kagame’s administration denies such charges and has denounced the opposition party that Karegeya and Mr Nyamwasa set up in exile, the Rwandan National Congress, as a terrorist group.  Mr Kagame, who has ruled Rwanda since 2000, claims to have brought stability to the country and overseen a period of strong economic growth. He is a regular speaker at events such as the World Economic Forum, but has also clamped down on opposition activity, winning re-election in 2017 with 99 per cent of the vote.

Mr Batenga said it he thought it unlikely Rwanda would honour the extradition request but that the arrest warrants should increase pressure on Mr Kagame. “You cannot really place much hope in the Kigali government that it will do what it is supposed to do. But we hope that at least all the signs are there,” he said. “The independent, judicial processes in South Africa are working.”


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