In 2022, Ntwali and Samuel Baker Byansi set out to investigate a story the government had consistently denied: the presence of Rwandan soldiers in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Byansi was arrested within days of returning from the trip, and he fled Rwanda. Ntwali died months later in what police said was a vehicle accident. But police released no evidence about the apparent collision, and many people think it never happened.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and 85 other international organizations have called for an independent inquiry into Ntwali’s death.
Now, Ntwali’s death has prompted Rwanda Classified, an international reporting project led by Forbidden Stories. Journalists from 17 media outlets in 11 countries set about investigating a pattern of repression by the government of President Paul Kagame, which goes to extreme lengths to silence critics and control the national narrative.
In the case of Ntwali, it may have even meant covering up his assassination with a fake vehicle accident.
“I went to the petrol station nearby on the day after he was killed,” one of Ntwali’s former colleagues told reporters. “I asked the workers there about the car accident. They said there hadn’t been a car accident in the area for months.”
Hours before his death Ntwali spoke to two witnesses interviewed by Forbidden Stories. He told them the Rwandan National Intelligence Security Service was closing in on him and that he could be killed imminently.
If Ntwali was right, he wouldn’t be the first journalist to be targeted by Rwandan authorities.
Journalists spoke to victims and former agents of the Rwandan regime who pointed to the use of sophisticated spyware and the involvement of the shadowy “intervention groups” who eliminate persons seen as opposed to Kagame’s government. These sometimes deadly operations have reportedly taken place in countries including Belgium, Sweden, France, the U.K., Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Mozambique.
Pegasus spyware was also used against opposition candidates and their families, as well as former Rwandan government ministers. Testimonies gathered by the Rwanda Classified consortium point to spies and diplomatic personnel intimidating exiled dissidents and opponents.
In 2010, the editor of Rwandan publication Umuvugizi, Bosco Gasasira, went into exile in Sweden after threats to his life. In 2021, Rwandan embassy staff in Sweden offered the family of Gasasira 490,000 euros (US$530,980) for his address, according to the publication Journalisten.
Paul Rusesabagina, famous for having saved more than a thousand people during the 1994 genocide –– a story told in the movie Hotel Rwanda –– was kidnapped by the government in in 2020. Rusesabagina was tortured and imprisoned before finally being released after strong international pressure.
The investigation also points to Rwanda employing numerous public relations firms to lobby the U.S. and U.K. governments in support of Kagame’s narrative of his country being a stable partner.
Rwanda is ranked among the top ten perpetrators of transnational repression, according to the U.K.’s Freedom House.
