20100628
africanews

Rwanda police have arrested two people over the shooting of a reporter last week and stated that it was a revenge attack.

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The reporter Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was fired on by two men who then fled in a car.

The government has denied as "baseless" accusations it was behind the killing. However, a police statement noted that one of the suspects is related to someone allegedly killed by Rugambage during the 1994 genocide.

Rugambage, who is survived by his wife and a child, was acquitted of genocide crimes by a local "gacaca" court in 2006.

According to the BBC, Human rights groups have accused President Paul Kagame of intimidating the media and the opposition ahead of elections due to take place in August.
A police statement quoted by the pro-government New Times newspaper said the pistol used to shoot Rugambage has been recovered.

The authorities recently suspended the Umuvugizi paper, prompting it to start publishing online instead.

The report quoted the editor Jean Bosco Gasasira, who fled to Uganda in April after his paper was suspended, to have said Kigali had masterminded the assassination of Mr Rugambage who died in hospital after the shooting.

"I'm 100% sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead," he told the Voice of America.