A Rwandan refugee who fled his job in President Kagame's personal bodyguard has been abducted in Uganda and forcibly returned to his home country, where rights groups fear that he may be tortured and killed.Fears grow for the life of Rwandan accused of treasonJerome Starkey, Africa Correspondent and Tabu Butagira in KampalaLast updated at 12:01AM, November 1 2013
Joel Mutabazi escaped from Rwanda in 2011 after claiming that he suffered 17 months of torture and solitary confinement in the infamous Kami military prison, on the outskirts of Kigali. He had been accused of supporting an exiled Rwandan general.
Mr Mutabazi was living in a UN safe house in Kampala after two men, who he said were members of Rwanda's intelligence service, tried to shoot him in his apartment last year.
Musa Ecweru, a Ugandan minister responsible for refugees, said that the former lieutenant was "abducted" last week by a rogue policeman and illegally transferred to Rwandan custody. In a statement released last night — six days after his arrest — the Rwandan police confirmed that Mr Mutabazi was in their custody. They claimed he had been arrested through "legal means".
It is the second time that Uganda's police have been implicated in violating Mr Mutabazi's rights, and Uganda's international commitments to the rights of refugees, at the behest of President Kagame's Government.
In a series of interviews with The Times, Mr Mutabazi had repeatedly warned that his life was in danger and appealed to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to protect him and his family. In August UN officials vowed to take "extraordinary measures" to keep him safe after members of Rwanda's security services stormed the safe house where he was staying and bundled him into a police car bound for Kigali.
He was spared only when the Office of Uganda's Prime Minister, which is responsible for refugees, ordered the Inspector General of Police to turn the car around. Mr Mutabazi, who was blindfolded, said that he heard his captors arguing with the Ugandan policemen and discussing whether or not to kill him on the spot.
Hilary Onek, the Ugandan Cabinet minister responsible for refugees, said that Mr Mutabazi was arrested "in an error of judgment", and then handed over to Rwandan officials in a clear breach of the "established legal procedure". The policeman responsible, Joel Aguma, was suspended pending an investigation, Mr Onek said.
Douglas Asiimwe, the officer responsible for refugees in the Office of the Prime Minister, also described Mr Mutabazi's disappearance as an abduction.
It is the latest example of Rwanda's ruthless pursuit of political exiles. At least six prominent opponents of Mr Kagame have been murdered since 1998, while six people have survived attempts on their life since 2010.
Britain has earmarked £90 million a year in aid to Rwanda. David Cameron invited Mr Kagame to address the Conservative Party conference in 2007 and he has continued to defend the Rwandan leader's development success despite inescapable evidence of human rights abuses.
A spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency said that it was a "clear violation of the asylum principle" to hand Mr Mutabazi back to the Government "where his life could be in danger". Carina Tertsakian, the Rwanda researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that Mr Mutabazi's disappearance was incomprehensible. "Rwandan authorities should guarantee his safety . . . and allow him immediate access to a lawyer and relatives," she said.
At least two other Rwandan asylum seekers, Innocent Kalisa and Pascal Manyirakiza, are thought to have been kidnapped from Kampala in August.
"Some time around August 7 a Rwandan asylum seeker named Pascal Manyirakiza, who was awaiting refugee status determination, also disappeared, apparently 'lured' from a safe house, and is believed to have been abducted," a spokeswoman for UNHCR said at the time.
Mr Manyirakiza was discovered three weeks later with what Ugandan officials described as torture marks. He had been dumped in a graveyard in the outskirts of Kampala.
In 2011 Scotland Yard warned two Rwandan exiles living in Britain that the Government in Kigali was plotting to kill them.
The Rwandan Government declined to comment yesterday. Yolande Makolo, Mr Kagame's spokeswoman, has previously dismissed reports of hit squads and claimed that Mr Mutabazi was linked to the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Jerome Starkey
Africa Correspondent
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