A journalist has been shot dead in front of his house in Kigali the Rwandan Capital.
Rwandan Journalist, Jean-Leonard Rugambage who was shot dead in front of his home in the Capital Kigali
Jean-Leonard Rugambage, a Rwandan journalist who had accused the Rwandan government of attempting to assassinate the former army chief Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa has been killed himself in an assassination like killing.
Two men were scene by witnesses who shot at the journalist and then fled with a car around 10:00pm on Thursday.
Rugambage, was the acting editor of the Umuvugizi newspaper which was suspended by the Rwandan authorities in April for six months for its opposition to the government resulting on its then editor Jean Bosco Gasasira fleeing to Uganda.
Eric Kayiranga, the Rwanda National police spokesperson, told the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) that a man had shot the acting editor of Umuvugizi which had launched an Internet site in May, at the gate of his home.
Kayiranga said “At the moment, we are yet to establish who is involved in the killing and police are currently conducting investigations and we will provide information as it comes,”
However, exiled former editor of the Umuvugizi newspaper Gasasira, has accused the Rwandan government of masterminding the killing of Rugambage.
Gasasira who spoke to Voice of America, a US state-funded radio said “I’m 100% sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead.”
Gasasira accused the government of assassinating the journalist after an article which was posted on the Umuvugizi newspaper website which accused the government of master-minding an assassination attempt on the former army chief Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa who has been on exile in South Africa.
The killing of the 34-year-old husband and father of one is being seen as the latest incident where the Rwandan government is repressing the media ahead of the much awaited elections, an issue which Kigali fiercely denies.
The Presidential elections in August 2010 will be the second since the 1994 genocide where almost a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.
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