A Swedish district court has sentenced a Burundi man to eight months in prison for spying on Rwandan regime critics in Sweden.
The Orebro District Court on Wednesday convicted Emmanuel Habiyambere of aggravated espionage for collecting information about Rwandan exiles between 2010 and 2011.
The court said Habiyambere passed on the information to Rwandan general Jack Nziza, who is closely affiliated with President Paul Kagame.
Court documents show the two had used the word “bananas” as a code word for regime critics in telephone calls.
One of the exiles Habiyambere spied on is a journalist who runs an independent Rwandan news website and fled the country after assassination attempts.
In 2012 a Rwandan diplomat was expelled from Sweden for also spying on Rwandan refugees.
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