KENYA: A Kenyan businessman has been murdered in a Mafia-style execution after offering to deliver a notorious Rwandan genocide fugitive to US investigators, it emerged yesterday.
Mr William Mwaura Munuhe (27) was found dead at his home in Nairobi's exclusive Karen suburb last Saturday, the Daily Nation reported. He had promised to help entrap Mr Felicien Kabuga, one of the alleged masterminds behind the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in exchange for a $5 million bounty.
Last Wednesday he arranged for armed police to wait outside his house, where Mr Kabuga was invited for a fake business meeting. But the alleged war criminal failed to show up and, three days later, police broke down the front door. They found Mr Munuhe lying face-up on his bed with a bullet wound to the head.
Yesterday the US ambassador to Kenya, Mr Johnnie Carson, confirmed the story, describing it as "regrettably true".
Mr Kabuga has been on the run since the mid-90s. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accuses the millionaire businessman of financing and arming the Interahamwe militia that carried out the worst atrocities that left up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead.
But Mr Kabuga has kept one step ahead of investigators by exploiting both his considerable wealth and, apparently, his top-level connections with Kenya's previous government, headed by Mr Daniel arap Moi.
In recent years Mr Kabuga has bought property and run businesses out of Nairobi, according to the International Crisis Group. When his daughter married in 1995, the bill was paid by the family of Mr Kenneth Matiba, a prominent opposition politician and wealthy businessman. In 2001, ICTR investigators traced him to houses owned by Mr Hosea Kiplagat, former president Moi's nephew. In one instance, Mr Moi's son, Gideon, owned the property next door.
However, his luck started to run out when Kenyans elected a new government last month. Shortly afterwards, the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Mr Pierre-Richard Prosper, accused a senior civil servant, Internal Security chief Mr Zakayo Cheruiyot, of sheltering Mr Kabuga.
Mr Cheruiyot was dismissed from his position and interviewed by police. He denies sheltering Mr Kabuga but admitted yesterday that he knew him.
The case raises disturbing questions for Kenya's newly elected president, Mr Mwai Kibaki. It calls into question the loyalty of Kenya's police, a notoriously corrupt body that has allowed tribal violence to flare in rural areas in recent days.