She showed up at the end of the funeral service, shocking her scheming husband, The Washington Post reports. But it turns out, he had made a crucial hiring mistake.
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Mr Kalala was eventually arrested and made a full confession, explaining he thought his wife wanted to leave him – an accusation she rejected. He approached her gingerly, then touched her shoulder. She told the BBC: “They ask me, ‘What did you do to this man?”
“I said to myself, I was already dead”. A man pointed a gun at her and forced her into a vehicle.
On February 22, 2015, Noela confronted her husband at her own funeral. After an attack of conscience, they let her go, and told Kalala that the deed had been done. And just in case she didn’t believe them, they called up her husband and were like, “Dude, what did you want us to do with your wife again?”
[Rukundo] could hear male voices, she told the ABC. They gave her a mobile phone, along with recordings of their phone conversations and receipts for the money they had been paid.
After his first sighting of Rukundo, his instinctive reaction was to beg for forgiveness, “I’m sorry for everything”, he said. The pastor helped her to get back to Australia and secretly return to the community even as her husband was planning her memorial.
Balanga had already informed the local community about her supposed death, telling people that she had died in an accident in Burundi. Little did he know that the funeral would have a surprise guest. She flew back to Australia a few days later. Because I don’t have any problem with anybody.’ They say, ‘Your husband!’ I say, ‘My husband can’t kill me, you are lying!’ And then they slap me. When Rukundo suggested she might go to sleep early, Kalala protested, saying that it must be very hot in Burundi and that she should relax outside.
“Is it my eyes?” he said.
She was driven to a building, where her captives phoned “the boss” and curiously asked her what she had done to him. “Is it a ghost?”
In an interview with the BBC, Noela Rukundo said her husband jumped and started screaming when he saw her.
Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. The phone was put on loudspeaker for Noela to hear the reply.
Kalala was sentenced to nine years in prison. “I didn’t think anything”, Rukundo reveals.
Despite all that, “I will stand up like a strong woman”, she said.
‘My situation, my past life?
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‘Sometimes Devil can come into someone, to do something, but after they do it they start thinking, ‘Why I did that thing?’, later, ‘ the Congolese forklift operator said as an explanation for his actions.
