Exiled former Rwanda intelligence chief found strangled close to bloodied towel and rope in South African hotel

Exiled former Rwanda intelligence chief found strangled close to bloodied towel and rope in South African hotel

• Patrick Karegeya, 53, found dead in Johannesburg hotel room
• Bloody towel and rope found in safe in the room, police confirmed today
• Had once headed Rwanda's military intelligence but fled to South Africa after allegedly plotting a coup against President Paul Kagame

By ROGER KITEMOKO –MAMBWENE.

A key opponent of a despotic African president has been found strangled in a hotel room after predicting he would one day be assassinated.

The body of Rwandan politician Patrick  Karegeya, 54, was discovered in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Karegeya, Rwanda’s former spy chief, fled the country after clashing with autocratic president Paul Kagame – whose country is given  £16million in aid every year by Britain.

In 2012, Karegeya, pictured above, said he expected to be killed because he knew the regime’s ‘dark secrets’.

South African intelligence sources claimed his drink had been spiked with poison to make his death look like suicide.

But they added that the killer seemed to have bungled the job and had to strangle him.

He had lived with his wife and three children in South Africa for six years, thwarting Kagame’s attempts to extradite him for ‘threatening state security’.

Karegeya's body was discovered on New Year's Day on a bed at hotel and apartment complex Michelangelo Towers - where he had checked in three days earlier.

His neck was swollen and a bloody towel and rope were found in the room's safe, South African police said.

The opposition Rwanda National Congress, many of whose senior members are also living in exile, described Karegeya's death as an assassination.

'By killing its opponents, the criminal regime in Kigali seeks to intimidate and silence the Rwandan people into submission,' it said.

A spokesperson for the Rwandan presidency declined to comment and it was not possible to reach Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo or spokespeople at the Rwandan embassy in Pretoria.

Paul Ramakolo, a spokesman for South Africa's Hawks, an elite crime fighting unit, confirmed Karegeya had been killed.

He said: 'We will check if it was as a result of strangulation or what could be the factor.'

Rwanda's ambassador to South Africa, Vincent Karega, earlier told local radio SAFM he was not aware of details of the killing.

'We encourage the authorities to really look into the matter so that we know exactly what happened,' he said.

The alleged coup against President Paul Kagame was thought to have been planned by Karegeya and Rwandan army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa - who was also exiled to South Africa.

Nyamwasa was shot in the stomach in 2010 as he drove into the driveway of his upmarket Johannesburg home.

 

He survived what his family said was an assassination attempt ordered by Kagame.

Both Nyamwasa and Karegeya fought alongside Kagame in Rwanda's 1994 war, which halted the genocide by ethnic Hutu militia who had killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just three months.

In 2011, South Africa declined a Rwandan request to extradite Nyamwasa to his homeland. He was also wanted in Spain and France for killings in the 1990s.

Also in 2011, a Rwandan military court sentenced Karegeya, Nyamwasa and two other exiled officers to 20 years in prison for threatening state security after they were tried in absentia.