Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. FILE
NATION MEDIA GROUP
KIGALI, Monday
Rwandan
President Paul Kagame has warned that "treason brings consequences",
apparently referring to the country's former spy chief, found dead in
South Africa.
The body of Patrick Karegeya -- a fierce
critic of Kagame -- was found on New Year's Day in a luxury hotel room
in Johannesburg where he had spent the past several years in exile.
(READ: Rwandan ex-spy chief found 'murdered')
Police,
who found a bloodied towel and a rope in the room's safe, said a
preliminary investigation indicated he might have been strangled and
opened a murder probe.
Karegeya's supporters immediately accused the Rwandan government of being behind his killing.
"If
someone feels no shame in destroying what we have built over a period
of time, I for my part will not feel shy of protecting what we have
built," Kagame said at a prayer breakfast in Kigali.
"Treason brings consequences," he warned Karegeya's fellow dissidents and other former allies who have gone into exile.
"All those fellows would have been nothing if it wasn't for Rwanda," he went on.
STRANGLED WITH ROPE
"Anyone
who betrays our cause or wishes our people ill will fall victim. What
remains to be seen is how you fall victim," Kagame said.
Karegeya
was the former head of Rwanda's external intelligence service and once a
close ally of Kagame. In 2004 he was demoted, then arrested and served
an 18-month jail sentence for desertion and insubordination.
He
was stripped of his rank of colonel in July 2006 and he fled the
country the following year. Kagame's comments follow remarks Saturday by
Defence Minister James Kabarebe.
"Ignore those making
noise saying that someone was strangled with a rope in the seventh floor
in a certain country," Kabarebe told a public meeting promoting
reconciliation among Rwandans.
"If you choose to be a
dog you die like a dog and cleaners will remove the trash and dump it
where it is supposed to be so that it doesn't stink for others. Those
that have fallen victim, its because they have chosen that path,"
Kabarebe was quoted as saying in local media.
The minister confirmed to AFP that he had made those comments, adding: "When someone like him dies ... we are not really bothered."
TERRORIST GROUP
Kagame
and Kabarebe argued that Karegeya and his allies were behind a series
of bloody grenade attacks in Rwanda over the past several years. A
Rwandan court in 2011 sentenced Karegeya in absentia to 20 years.
Three
other dissidents were handed similar sentences. All four were charged
with "forming a terrorist group, threatening state security, undermining
public order, promoting ethnic divisions and insulting the person of
the President of the Republic".
Karegeya had denied being linked in any way to the grenade attacks.
Rwandan
Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, earlier said in Twitter messages
that Karegeya was a "self-declared" enemy of Rwanda.
"You expect pity?" she asked her followers in the days following his death.
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