Joel Mutabazi, a former presidential bodyguard facing terrorism charges in Rwanda, is a shadow of his former self.
“He’s like a skeleton,” said his emotionally frayed wife Gloria Kayitesi in an interview, commenting on pictures of him splashed on the Internet.
Shackled and abased, Mutabazi appeared in military court last week in full view of journalists. In photos, his complexion was sallow and the whites of his eyes were inflamed with tiny veins. Physically diminished and with little prospect for freedom, he had become a man with nothing to lose.
And yet the former child soldier and repository of secrets that worked for President Paul Kagame for two decades emerged defiant. In a statement that shocked the court, Mutabazi refused to be tried, said his life was in danger and he was not guilty of terrorism and other alleged crimes.
Mutabazi—viewed as the ‘highest caliber target’ among Rwandan Tutsi refugees in Uganda capable of incriminating Kagame and his senior officials—was seized three months ago in Kampala where he had been living in a UN safe house under police surveillance. In breach of international law, Rwanda engineered his forced return and accused him of forming an armed group and conspiring to kill the president. FULL STORY
