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Rwanda Arrests Denis Kazungu After Bodies Are Found in a Pit Beneath His Kitchen in Kigali

Rwandan investigators arrested the 34-year-old tenant after more than 10 bodies were reported found buried in his rented house. The final toll was left to forensic work.

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Illustration: a small house on a red-earth hillside street in an East African city, a pickup parked outside

When investigators searched a rented house in a suburb of Kigali, they found bodies dumped in a pit dug in the kitchen. On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, the Rwanda Investigation Bureau arrested the tenant, Denis Kazungu, 34, on suspicion of killing people and burying them there. The house stood in Busanza Cell, Kanombe Sector, in Kicukiro District.

Local media reported that more than 10 bodies had been found. A source inside the bureau told Agence France-Presse, on condition of anonymity, that 14 victims had been counted so far. The bureau's spokesman, Thierry Murangira, would not confirm a figure. "The final number will be determined by forensic investigations," he told AFP. In a post on social media, the bureau said its investigators were still working to establish how many people had died, over what span of time, and who they were.

Police said Kazungu met his victims in bars and lured them to his home. "He operated by luring his victims, mostly prostitutes, to his home where he would rob them of their phones and belongings and then strangled them to death and buried them in a hole dug in the kitchen of his rented house," Murangira said. He said Kazungu had confessed to the killings during questioning and that the early findings showed the victims were both men and women. The anonymous source went further, telling AFP that Kazungu claimed to have learned to kill by watching famous serial killers and had dissolved some victims in acid. None of that had been confirmed by the bureau.

He had been in custody once already that summer. In July he was arrested on suspicion of robbery and rape, among other offenses, and released on bail for lack of evidence, Murangira said, according to local media. The investigation went on, and on September 5 he was arrested again and the house searched.

He was held as a suspect while the investigation went on. If found guilty, KT Press noted, he would face life imprisonment under Rwanda's penal code.

Early counts of the dead varied. Rwandan media reported "up to ten" and "more than 10" bodies, and an unnamed bureau source told AFP of 14 victims, a figure the bureau itself declined to confirm. The victims had not been publicly identified when this was reported.

Sources