South African police are investigating the death of exiled Rwandan opposition politician Seif Bamporiki who was killed in Cape Town.
Mr Bamporiki was reportedly shot dead while delivering a bed to a client in Nyanga on Sunday afternoon. He was accompanied by an unidentified male.
The suspects took their cell phones and wallets before they fled the scene in the deceased’s vehicle. No arrests have been made.
Western Cape police spokesperson Colonel Andrè Traut confirmed to Independent Media that they were investigating a case of murder.
“It is alleged that the deceased and another male, aged 50, were doing a delivery of a bed in the area when they were approached by two unknown suspects,” Mr Traut said.
“The deceased was pulled from his vehicle and shot, while the 50-year-old male who accompanied him managed to escape unharmed. The suspects, who are yet to be arrested, fled in the deceased’s vehicle.”
In 2010, another RNC member, a former army chief by the name of Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, was shot and wounded in Johannesburg.
The assassinations of Rwandan dissidents in South Africa had led to diplomatic tensions between the two countries, including the expulsion of diplomats, before relations thawed under the current South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Regarding the murder of Mr. Bamporiki, Mr. Ngqengelele said: “We are led by the police, and so far they have not indicated that it was a political murder.”
Beyond South Africa, critics of the Rwandan government have also been targeted elsewhere. In Kenya, a former minister was gunned down in 1998 a few months after saying he feared for his life. In Belgium, the mutilated body of a former government official was found floating in a canal in 2005.
And last August, after an elaborate ruse that Mr. Kagame called “flawless”, Paul Rusesabagina, a government critic who was credited with saving 1,268 lives during the Rwandan genocide, was arrested and charged with terrorism. . This case sparked worldwide condemnation.
In Mr Bamporiki’s case, the man who ostensibly brought him to death had called him regularly for a week, insisting he wanted to buy a bed from his store, Mr Mutabazi said on Monday, RNC spokesperson. Mr Bamporiki was at a party conference in Johannesburg at the time, but didn’t suspect anything untoward, Mr Mutabazi said.
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