Exiled critic of Rwandan president found beheaded in Uganda

An exiled vocal critic of the Rwandan government has been found decapitated near Kampala, south-central Uganda, according to a police spokesperson, in a case which remains under investigation.

Ugandan police said on Monday they were investigating the “murder of a male adult (around 50), whose head was cut off, and up to now, the head has not yet been recovered”, spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke told reporters, adding that the body had been identified by relatives as Robert Kabera.

The body was found in Luwala, a village near Kampala, and the killing likely took place late on October 16 or early on October 17, police added.

Robert Kabera, a former sergeant who fled Rwanda several years ago, was living in Uganda. The former soldier was not critical of the government during his time with the military, but grew increasingly opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Kabera had a YouTube channel, “Major Robert TV”, with 144,000 subscribers. He featured a song praising opposition figure Victoire Ingabire, a rare voice of dissent in Rwanda who had been repeatedly imprisoned.

‘A witch-hunt’

In Uganda, “Robert had no issues with anyone”, his brother, Victor Agaba, told the AFP news agency.

“Our problem comes from home… The army created a criminal case against him. It was a witch-hunt,” he said.

Kabera was declared a fugitive after leaving Rwanda and accused of corrupting a minor, charges he denied.

Rwandan authorities have been accused of assassinating opponents of President Kagame, who has governed the country since coming to power in 2000. The Rwandan president took the reins in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed, primarily from the minority Tutsi community.

Kabera is not the first opposition figure in exile to be assassinated.

In 2021, a former lieutenant in the Rwandan army, Revocat Karemangingo, was shot dead in Mozambique, where he was suspected of secretly supporting an opposition force.

Outspoken opponent Seif Bamporiki was shot dead in South Africa the same year, while a former Rwandan intelligence chief turned critic, Patrick Karegeya, was strangled in his South African hotel room in 2014.

Former general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who co-founded the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) opposition party with Karegeya and lives in exile, has survived several assassination attempts.

Source: www.aljazeera.com