KIJALI, Rwanda, June 25 (UPI) -- The exiled editor of an independent newspaper in Rwanda said the acting editor was killed because the paper was investigating the shooting of a Rwandan general.
Jean Leonard Rugambage was shot outside his home Thursday in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and died later at a hospital, Umuvugizi editor Jean Bosco Gasasira told Voice of America.
Gasasira charged Rwandan security killed Rugambage because the suspended newspaper was investigating the June 19 shooting that wounded Rwandan dissident Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa and had published online a story implicating Rwanda's chief spy.
Nyamwasa, who has lived in exile in South Africa since earlier this year, has accused President Paul Kagame of corruption.
Gasasira, who fled to Uganda in April after his newspaper was suspended, told VOA the government planned the killing of Rugambage. "I'm 100 percent sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead," he said. "This happened after publishing a story on the Umuvugizi Web site, which cited Rwanda's chief spy of being involved in the shooting of Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa," he said.
Rwandan officials deny involvement in the shooting.
The killing of Rugambage, just weeks before the August election, the second since the genocide, demonstrates the government's determination to stop independent media, Gasasira said.
The BBC reported human rights groups accuse the Rwandan government of repressing independent media, a claim the government denies.
The British network said Kagame's government argues it must control the media and politicians to avoid a repeat of the genocide, which killed about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
