For long, Rene Mugenzi portrayed himself as a critic of the government of Rwanda and went as far as claiming that his life was in danger. The London Metropolitan Police was duped into this game and Mugenzi celebrated a win. 

It didn’t take long to find out his game. Mugenzi was arrested and brought to court for a con-job he had long done against the British people when they entrusted him with parish finances. 

For close to a decade, he had been stealing from them while projecting the image of a model citizen. In her ruling, the magistrate, Judge Katharine Moore, observed that fears about Mugenzi’s life being under threat of the government of Rwanda were "not well-founded” and had "no reliable support.”

It was a ruse to win the trust of the British people so that he takes them to the cleaners.

Another Rwandan man, this time in Australia, is operating from Mugenzi’s playbook. On June 9, The Sydney Morning Herald published an article with the title "Australian citizen asks for UN’s help to locate missing brothers in Rwanda.” Noel Zihabamwe also says that the Rwandan authorities at the embassy there had approached him "in an effort to recruit him to become an agent of influence for them in Australia.” Apparently, he declined, and "His brothers went missing a month after he shared his story anonymously with the ABC in August 2019.” 

Of course, no one believes that the Rwandan government can abduct family members of its nationals simply because they have refused to be an "agent of influence.” After all, this is a country where children of an FDLR leader were granted government scholarships to attend the best universities in Rwanda and around the world. But Zihabamwe has even managed to convince the police in Australia that there’s a threat to his own life. Rene Mugenzi is in a British prison but someone seems to be living his life in Australia under the name of Noel Zihabamwe. 

Like Mugenzi, whose claims of threats were aimed to conceal his genocide denial, Zihabamwe is also hiding something. 

Zibahamwe is a member of an offshoot of the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) that calls itself Rwanda Alliance for National Pact (RANP-Abaryankuna) that was founded by Cassien Ntamuhanga following his escape from prison in Rwanda, through Kampala, to Southern Africa. It is from there that they have established a network of members mainly in Europe and Australia.

It is widely known that the Abaryankuna has been recruiting members and using the same corridor that Ntamuhanga is said to have used through Kampala where they remain for some time as they are facilitated with travel documents before they relocate to Southern Africa, Europe, and Australia. Kigali authorities have known that several dozens of Abaryankuna recruits are in Kampala being processed to these destinations.

In other words, by going to The Sydney Morning Herald, Zibahamwe has done a good thing. Kigali authorities now know that there’s a high likelihood that he recruited his relatives into this terror organization and that, indeed, he knows where they are. He is simply incriminating them. It’s evident that he isn’t only a relative given his role in Abaryankuna as a coordinator, mobilizer, and financier of this terror organization whose objective, according to their propaganda online, especially YouTube, is to bring chaos and violence to Rwanda.

Zibahamwe claims his life is under threat because he has seen others who have tried to destabilize Rwanda through terrorism end up in Kigali facing justice. He knows that he either should give up terror or it’s a matter of time before he finds himself before courts of law in Australia or in Kigali. 

Mugenzi, the man he is copying, is in a British jail, after all. Australians should know these scammers.