Rwanda party: Find 'real motives'
2010-07-17 19:36
Kigali - A Rwandan opposition party on Saturday welcomed the arrest of a suspect in the murder of its vice president, and called on the police to establish the "real motives" behind the attack.
Both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the European Union have condemned the killing of Andre Kagwa Rwisereka of the Rwandan Democratic Green Party and urged authorities to conduct a full investigation.
Rwisereka's nearly decapitated body was found dumped by a river on Wednesday. Police said on Thursday they had arrested a suspect, Thomas Ntivuguruza, who had been seen in a bar with the victim on Monday night.
The Green Party's president, Frank Habineza, said in a statement that "This is a good step taken in these investigations".
"We had shared some of those details with the national police and the Rwandan Army," he added.
"We hope that this suspect will not divert the police investigations but lead us to the killers of our Vice President and their real motives."
Speaking in Madrid on Friday, United Nations chief Ban expressed concern at the murder of Rwisereka and Rwandan journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage, who was shot dead near his home in Kigali on June 24.
He stressed "the need to respect human rights" and "he encouraged the Rwandan authorities to carry out a full investigation into these incidents", his spokesperson Vannina Maestracci told AFP.
The Rwandan Democratic Green Party is not registered and has no candidate for next month's presidential elections. It has accused President Paul Kagame of blocking it from taking part in the polls.
Both Rwisereka and Habineza defected from Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front to set up their own party. Rugambage was also a critic of Kagame, who is expected to win a further term in the August 9 election.
Kagame was in Madrid on Friday for the first meeting of the MDG Advocacy Group set up last month by the UN to advance the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty by 2015.
Kagame and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are the co-chairs of the group.
But at the last minute Zapatero opted out of Friday's meeting following protests from Spanish opposition parties about Kagame's regime.
- SAPA