Did Kagezi killers target top police officer?

What you need to know:

  • Mistaken identity? The killers were reportedly after a senior police officer travelling in the same direction with Joan Kagezi.

Over three years to the day former senior prosecutor Joan Kagezi was shot dead, investigators attached to military intelligence are pursuing new leads that suggest the assailants’ target could have been a different individual – a senior police officer.
It has also emerged, according to our military intelligence sources, that a boda boda rider reported to a police station after the killing and described a passenger he had transported from Kampala City suburbs of Kasubi to Ntinda whose one-sided telephone conversation seemed to be a coordination of a crime.
He reportedly said when they reached Ntinda, his passenger received a call and asked the person on the other line whether the mission had been accomplished to which he seemed to get an affirmative answer. He then stopped the rider and he paid him off.
That same evening, the boda boda rider said he learnt of the killing of Ms Kagezi at Kiwatule, near Ntinda, about the same time his passenger had been communicating.
It is not clear whether this information was pursued by the police investigators, but our source said this is a lead the military investigators are pursuing and that they have sufficient clues on the identity of that passenger and his telephone logs are consistent.
On the evening of the killing, March 30, 2015, one of the investigators who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity, says Kagezi and the female police officer were travelling in the same direction, driving in similar double cabin pick-up trucks.
Ms Kagezi was driving ahead while the senior police officer was four or five vehicles behind.
We have decided not to name the police officer because our attempts to speak to her on the matter were unsuccessful.

This reporter was unable to secure an appointment with her because she repeatedly said she was busy with official engagements. But sources have told Saturday Monitor that the senior policewoman is aware of the scheme that was supposed to have led to her death and she counts herself very lucky.
Ms Kagezi was shot in full view of her children, who she had left in the car as she walked out to buy some groceries on their way home. She was gunned down in Kiwatule.
On March 8, during the celebration of International Women’s Day in Mityana, President Museveni said he had information regarding the killers of Ms Kagezi and that action would be taken. He also said he knew who killed other people like former police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi – that some had already been arrested and some were still on the loose.
It was only regarding those who killed prominent Muslim clerics over the recent years that the President said he did not yet have enough information then.
There have been no notable arrests regarding the killing of Ms Kagezi, but sources in military intelligence say meticulous intelligence work has been done in recent months and key arrests could follow soon.

Motive
Our sources say the top police officer was targeted because of her role in investigating what came to be known as the Pensions case in which at least Shs165b meant for pensioners was stolen after connivance between officials in the ministries of Public Service and Finance.
Some of the officials who were implicated in the scam, intelligence sources say, put out a $400,000 to bribe the investigators, a big chunk of which was meant for the top police officer.
But the go-betweens who reportedly picked up the money and had to deliver it to the top police officer allegedly hit a dead end when the top police officer declined to take the money.
Anyhow, the sources say, they reportedly told their employers that they had delivered the bribe money to the top police officer.
One question that has preoccupied the military investigators for months now, sources say, is whether the people who picked up the money but failed to get the police officer to kill the case decided to kill her accusing her of ‘betrayal’.
Another key question is the source of the troublesome $400,000 which is believed to have led to the killing of Ms Kagezi in a case of mistaken identity.
The sources say in a bid to kill the case by concealing the source of the money, individuals (names withheld) have been targeted and live in fear of being killed.