An inquest into the death of an exiled Rwandan ex-spy chief who
was found strangled in a luxury Johannesburg hotel in 2014 will open in
January, a South African court official said Thursday.
Patrick
Karegeya, 53, was living in South Africa when he was killed in a room
at the plush Michelangelo Towers hotel in the Johannesburg suburb of
Sandton.
"It's not a trial it's a formal inquest and it starts on 16 January," the court official told AFP.
"At
this stage we are holding a formal enquiry to ascertain who was
responsible for the death," said the official who did not have
permission to speak to the media.
Mr Karegeya was head of external intelligence for nearly a decade before falling out with President Paul Kagame.
In
2007, he fled into exile in South Africa, where he became a fierce
critic, describing Mr Kagame as a dictator and alleging he had
first-hand knowledge of the state killing of Rwandan dissidents abroad.
Mr Karegeya's supporters have accused the Rwandan government of being behind his killing.
Another
of Kagame's opponents, former general Kayumba Nyamwasa, survived two
assassination attempts in June 2010 in what Pretoria described as an
attack by foreign security operatives.
A magistrates
court that sentenced four men to eight years in prison for attempted
murder in 2014, described the attack as a "politically motivated"
assassination plot.
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