Jennifer Byukusenge, a Rwandan woman accused of reportedly being sent by President Paul Kagame to assassinate former deputy police chief Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeeyi, has spoken out before the country’s press for the first time sincr she returned to Rwanda via the Kagitumba border.
Kampala deported Byukusenge, a finalist at Mount Kenya University, on May 05 following her arrest and detention by the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) in April.
Aged 24, Byukusenge said she had come to visit her mother in Nalukolongo. But a day later, she went to meet a friend in Buziga.
It was from here that she was arrested as she stepped out to meet another ‘friend’ named Faisal.
Byukusenge told Rwandan media in May 06 that she believed her ‘friend’ had links with the CMI operatives who arrested and detained her.
Before she could even greet Faisal, she narrated, three men emerged and arrested her and Faisal telling them “You’re all criminals.”
Her Buziga friend would later learn of Byukusenge’s arrest from a security guard.
This friend informed Byukusenge’s mother of her daughter’s arrest.
Byukusenge further claimed CMI operatives separated her from Faisal, driving each in a different vehicle.
They had told her she and Faisal would answer a few questions and be released.
Byukusenge was reportedly told “she had nothing to do about her predicament” when she kept complaining, and that they had blindfolded her as they drove her.
She alleges they locked her in a toilet for two weeks, constantly asking her of her links to Kagame and security agencies.
“They asked me: ‘How many soldiers do you know? What brought you to Uganda?” she narrated.
“They could beat me up asking me names of soldiers and police officers saying that we know each other. I still feel pain whenever I go to sleep.”
Byukusenge continued: “I told them that I am not familiar with people in security; that I was a mere university student. I just told them names of three men who are serving in Rwandan Defence Force that I know.
“Is it Kagame who sent you? Tell us who exactly they sent you [to spy on Uganda].”
That the only name of a security officer they found in Byukusenge’s mobile phone was that of a prison warden saved as ‘Afande.’
She says she was later moved to a detention facility where she found two Rwandan women who were not sure of the name of the place where they were being held.
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In her new cell in Mbuya, Byukusenge spent another two weeks.
Yet, all this time, she never learnt of why she was arrested and detained.
Out of the cell, she would read press reports that she had been sent by Kagame to kill Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeeyi.
“I am not a killer. I went to Uganda through legal channels and, upon arrival, my mother informed local leaders as is the requirement,” Byukusenge said.
“I only knew that [the claim that Kagame sent me to kill Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeeyi] after being deported because I even left the detention without knowing which case I was detained for.”
Additional reporting: courtesy
