Rwandan police arrest two over senior journalist’s death

Kampala

The Rwandan police say they have arrested two suspected killers of senior journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage as media activists around the world piled pressure on the government to deliver justice.

Police Spokesman Eric Kayiranga said yesterday that the two men, one reportedly found in possession of a pistol, were picked up on Sunday from Kamonyi District in Mugina sector. “One of the suspects is a relative to a person alleged to have been killed by late Rugambage during the 1994 genocide, implying that his killing might have been conducted in revenge,” he said by telephone from Kigali.

Rugambage, acting editor of the fortnightly Umuvugizi vernacular newspaper, was shot dead at the gate to his home on Thursday in Nyamirambo, a populated Kigali suburb. His killing has been condemned by various media organisations, among them the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF); the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, the African Editors’ Forum, the International Federation of Journalists and the East African Journalists Association (EAJA).

Killing condemned
“The African Editors’ Forum protests against repression as instruments to silence journalists and newspapers, whose only crime is to exercise their right to freedom of expression and practice their profession freely,” Mathatha Tsedu, the Forum chair said in a declaration issued yesterday.

Rugambage was snuffed out after he published an article online implicaing Rwandan government and alleged involvement of senior officials in the attempted June 18 assassination of renegade military general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, in South Africa, the editors noted.