KIGALI, (Reuters) – A journalist working for a  suspended Rwandan newspaper was shot dead by an unknown gunman,  police said yesterday.

Jean Leonard Ruganbage, who worked as an editor for the  vernacular Umuvugizi paper, was shot twice outside his home in a  suburb of Kigali on Thursday night, police spokesman Eric  Kayiranga said.

“It was around 10 pm at his gate, as he was coming home. An  armed criminal shot him with two bullets. Police came five  minutes later and took the body to hospital. He died on the  spot,” Kayiranga told Reuters.

Ahead of a presidential election on Aug. 9, international  rights groups and the United States, a major donor and military  ally, have expressed growing concerns about a government  clampdown on critical media and opposition political parties.

The government says free speech must be tempered by concerns  about inciting ethnic hatred which led to the 1994 genocide in  which 800,000 people were slaughtered.

Ruganbage’s senior editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, who fled to  Uganda in April, accused the government of responsibility.  Police firmly denied the charges.

“I and my deputy editor were following up an investigative  story (and) he’s been under intense surveillance. We’re really  100 percent sure it was those people who have been following him  who are responsible,” he said by telephone from Kampala.

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders  (RSF) demanded that France, whose ties with Rwanda have been  improving after years of strain, and the European Union ensure  an independent investigation into the killing.

“The suspensions of newspapers, repeated cases against media  professionals and the blocking of internet sites don’t appear to  have been enough to make the international community react,” RSF  said in a statement. “Will this tragic incident at least open  the eyes of those who endorse the Kigali regime?”

Gasasira linked his colleague’s killing to an Umuvugizi  story published online on Thursday which blamed Rwandan  intelligence for an alleged assassination attempt on an exiled  former army and intelligence chief in South Africa a week ago.