Rwandan cultural icon who tried to kill president found dead in jail cell

● Disbelief over claims of popular gospel musician Kizito Mihigo’s custody suicide

A popular Rwandan gospel musician who was found guilty of conspiracy to murder or harm President Paul Kagame has been found dead in a police cell.

Kizito Mihigo, 38, an ethnic Tutsi survivor of the 1994 genocide that killed more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them, killed himself in the cell in Rwanda’s capital Kigali,

police said. A statement shared on social media by police spokesman JB Kabeera said Mihigo’s body was found during a routine check by officers at Remera police station yesterday morning

The official account of a suicide will be met with scepticism in a country where the government is frequently accused of targeting perceived critics.

“Too often, sensitive cases in Rwanda result in mysterious deaths or disappearances,” said Lewis Mudge of Human Rights Watch.

He called for an investigation that would examine the possibility that Mihigo “could have been ill-treated or killed in custody”.

Described by many as Rwanda’s biggest cultural icon and a Catholic known for songs promoting healing and forgiveness, Mihigo had been pardoned by Mr Kagame in 2018 after he was convicted in 2015 but was rearrested last week.

Police asserted that he had been trying to flee to neighbouring Burundi to join groups fighting the Rwandan government.

“He has been in a police cell for three days as police investigated why he was crossing the border illegally and cases of bribery,” police said.

Mihigo had been allowed to meet family members and his lawyer. It was not known whether he had been held in solitary.

The news of the death was met with disbelief.

However, the Rwanda Investigations Bureau tweeted that the country’s security agencies had handed over Mihigo, saying the charges against him included illegally crossing to Burundi, joining terrorist groups and corruption.

Mihigo was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was found guilty of conspiracy to murder Mr Kagame and other leaders. He was also convicted of complicity to overthrow the government and conspiracy to form alliances to destabilise the country.

He pleaded guilty to all charges, leading the judge to say he was being given a lenient sentence because he had made the court’s work easy.

He was pardoned in 2018 by Mr Kagame alongside Rwanda’s leading opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire.

But last week police said his attempt to escape constituted a breach of conditions of the presidential order, meaning the revocation of the pardon.

Mihigo was best known for the songs Inuma (Pigeon) and Igisobanuri cy’urupfu (The Meaning of Death).