REUTERS

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, right, walks beside his army chief of staff, Brigadier-General Kayumba Nyamwasa, in Kigali during celebrations marking Liberation Day in 2000.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Monday rejected allegations that his government was behind the killing of a journalist critical of his government in Kampala earlier this month .

“That is merely one of the assumptions and I don't think we need to work on just one assumption and neglect the facts. It is wrong, absolutely wrong,” Kagame told journalists at a press conference here.

Charles Ingabire, editor of opposition website Inyenyeri News, was shot dead by an unknown gunman in Kampala on December 1.

Colleagues said Ingabire, 32, had fled Rwanda several years earlier due to his outspoken criticism of Kagame's regime and had been attacked on several occasions while living in Kampala.

Kagame however said that Rwandan authorities had unearthed evidence showing that Ingabire had stolen money from an organisation helping orphans which he had headed prior to fleeing to Uganda.

“We have many cases like this in Rwanda of people committing crimes and claiming political persecution,” Kagame said.

Kagame has consistently come in for criticism from rights groups over his perceived intolerance of critical reporting in the country.

In June last year Jean-Leonard Rugambage, deputy editor of the critical bi-monthly Umuvugizi, was gunned down in front of his home in Kigali.

Two men have been jailed for life for the killing but rights groups have charged that the authorities were behind it, a claim they have repeatedly dismissed. – Sapa-AFP