MAPUTO, Mozambique — Four Rwandans, including a senior military official, are being held in Mozambique in connection with the killing of a former Rwandan spymaster and await extradition to South Africa, Mozambique police said Wednesday.

The Rwandans were detained a week ago, said Mozambique police spokesman Joao Machava.

The body of Col. Patrick Karegeya, the exiled former head of Rwandan intelligence, was found in a plush Johannesburg hotel on Jan. 1
Machava gave no details as to where the four suspects had been detained but it is believed that the Mozambican police were acting on a tip-off from their South African counterparts.

One of the suspects is Lt. Col. Francis Gakwerere, a senior official in the Rwandan armed forces, Machava said. Gakwerere’s name was on a list of seven people claimed in a blog run by Rwandan dissidents to belong to a hit squad sent to South Africa to eliminate Karegeya.

Karegeya is suspected by police to have been strangled. A bloodied towel and curtain cord were found in a safe in the hotel room. Opponents of the Rwandan government say he was murdered at the behest of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Earlier this week Kagame said it’s a matter of time before those who’ve betrayed Rwanda face consequences.

Karegeya was once an ally of Kagame, and they fought together in the Rwanda Patriotic Front. He headed the feared external intelligence agency from 1994, when Kagame’s rebel movement took power and ended the Rwandan genocide, until 2004. Karegeya was then arrested, and served an 18-month sentence for alleged desertion and insubordination. He had been living in exile in South Africa since 2007