http://www.mg.co.za/
08 April 2001 Doomsday cult leaders
may be in DRC
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Sunday 3.15pm.

POLICE in Uganda say that they believe some of the leaders of the doomsday cult held responsible for the deaths of around 1 000 followers are in Democratic Republic of Congo.

"What we have found out is that they were sighted in the areas of Rutoma heading for the border with Congo," a police source who asked not to be named said late on Saturday.

He said that several witnesses told the police that Joseph Kibwetere and several other leaders of the Restoration for the Ten Commandments of God cult were seen on the road from the small town of Rutoma to Uganda's border with the DRC on March 16, the day before hundreds of the cult's followers perished in a church fire at Kanugu in the southwestern district of Rukungiri.

According to the police source, both civilian and military authorities in areas of eastern DRC controlled by Ugandan troops and rebel soldiers have been alerted to the possible presence of the cult leaders.

Meanwhile, according to the police spokesman Eric Naigambi, police stations around the country have been ordered to compile lists of people reported missing in an effort to find out the exact number of people believed to have been murdered by the cult's leaders.

Police are also trying to establish the nationalities of the victims, some of whom are said to have come from Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. International arrest warrants based on murder charges were issued on Thursday against six of the cult's leaders.

They are Kibwetere, the movement's "prophet", Credonia Mwerinde, its so-called "programmer", Dominic Kataribaabo, a former Roman Catholic priest, and three others named only as Kasaburari, Kamagari and Komuhangi.

Around 400 members of the cult died on March 17 in a fire in their church in Kanungu.

The bodies of hundreds of other people, including those of many women and children, were found buried on properties linked to members of the cult.

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