BURUNDI: A captured Burundian rebel has claimed to have taken part in the ambush that killed Archbishop Michael Courtney, the Irish Papal Nuncio in Burundi, last December.
"We laid an ambush on the archbishop's car," said a wounded soldier, Mr Dieudonne Hakizimana of the National Liberation Forces (FNL), from his hospital bed in the capital, Bujumbura.
Archbishop Courtney (58) died in a hail of gunfire on December 29th as he returned from a religious service in the south of the war-torn country. His vehicle was reportedly flying the yellow Papal flag.
Mr Hakizama said the FNL had been preparing an attack on a government military checkpoint when Archbishop Courtney's car passed.
"We had been given orders to stop all passing cars and to shoot any car which did not stop," he told the Associated Press.
Mr Hakizama was captured last week when the battalion he commanded was moving between positions south of Bujumbura, a government spokesman said. Two other rebels were killed in the operation.
However, the apparent confession will not necessarily end controversy about the identity of Archbishop Courtney's killers.
Both the FNL and the government have blamed each other for the attack, claims that were reiterated yesterday. A rebel spokesman, Mr Pasteur Habimana, denied that Mr Hakizama was linked to his group.
Claims that Archbishop Courtney was the victim of a random attack have provoked some scepticism in the central African nation, where political assassination has been a recurring theme in the 11-year-old civil war.
Shortly after his death, the Apostolic Nuncio to Uganda, Monsignor Pierre Christophe, told reporters: "The manner of his death, and I am talking about a genuine execution, shows that Archbishop Courtney was a wanted man."
The FNL is the last of four Hutu rebel groups still fighting Burundi's transitional government. The President, Mr Domitien Ndayizeye, is a Hutu but key army positions remain in the hands of the Tutsi minority.