Scepticism over police account of nuns’ deaths

Police in Burundi say they are holding the killer of three nuns who were murdered in their convent near the capital, Bujumbura, but nuns and others are questioning the police version of events, writes Fredrick Nzwili.

The three, Sr Lucia Pulici, 75, Sr Olga Raschietti, 83, and Sr Bernadette Boggia, 79, of the Xaverian Missionary Sisters of Mary, were murdered on 7 and 8 September. On 10 September police claimed that Christian Butoyi Claude, 33, had confessed to the killings. “When asked about the reasons for the triple homicide, Butoyi replied, ‘These foreigners hold his family plot’. He also admitted a bloody shirt at the scene was his,” said police spokesman Herménégilde Harimenshi.

The suspect was found with the two keys used by the nuns for entering the convent, and sold a nun’s mobile phone and a laptop, police say. But contributors to the local Iwacu news site are questioning the quick arrest.

 “Only the truth will lead to lasting peace,” said Archbishop Gervais Banshimiyubusa, president of the Catholic bishops’ conference at the nuns’ funeral on 10 September. Sr Delia Guadagnini of the Missionary Sisters of Mary in Burundi has said the nuns do not believe the police version of events.