Lugogo shooting: Key witness speaks out

KAMPALA.

The woman whom detectives have twice arrested and interviewed following clues that she witnessed the last Saturday fatal shooting of child rights activist Kenneth Akena has, for the first time, spoken out to the media about the incident.

Ms Rose Kade, better known by the pet name Mama Namande, said last evening that she was on the fateful day planning to leave her roadside workplace near Kyadondo Rugby Club on the Kampala-Jinja highway when two vehicles suddenly swerved and parked in front of her.

“The big one looked black and the small one grey, but I don’t know the types,” she said of the nightfall incident, adding: “From the big car, a man and woman came out and one person came out of the small car.”

The mother of four said she initially mistook the trio for potential clients, but packed up her merchandise and left after none headed her way. They, however, stood at a distance and began talking, she said.

Ms Namande, who claimed in yesterday’s interview at her residence in Naguru-Kasenge, Nakawa Division that she was the only person in sight, said she picked up her basket of unsold groundnut snacks and trekked the four kilometres home.

Surprised
She said she was surprised to hear the next day, on Sunday, November 13, that a person had been shot dead around her workplace.
Asked if she heard any gunshots ring out the previous evening, Ms Kade said “no”.

This latest position, coming after two separate interrogations at Jinja Road Police Station, marks a departure from the woman’s reported early week narrative to nearby boda boda riders that a man from the bigger car reached for a gun in his car boot after a physical confrontation with what turned out to be Akena.

He shot the deceased at a close range, she said earlier, according to accounts offered to this newspaper by different boda boda riders.

Security operatives in two cars on Tuesday unexpectedly pulled up at Ms Kade’s workplace and arrested her to help with ongoing investigations into the death of the 33-year-old Akena - a killing that has generated nationwide interest and anger amid calls for curbs on private firearm possession.

Ms Kade said she was taken to Jinja Road Police Station and told that Ms Cynthia Munwangari, who together with boyfriend Matthew Kanaymunyu, are being held as prime suspects. She told detectives that she was present during the incident.

“I explained what I had seen and did not say what I hadn’t,” said Ms Kade, who was released later on Tuesday night after several hours of questioning.

Kampala Metropolitan spokesman Emilian Kayima, in a comment for our yesterday’s lead story about the principal witness in the Akena shooting disappearing, denied that police ever arrested her.

When Ms Kade thought her woes were over, yesterday morning, she received a call from telephone number 0700 128 899 and the caller asked her to report to the nearby Naguru Remand Home Police Post.

The caller sounded feminine, but we have established that the cellphone is registered with the service provider in the names of Mr Peter Mutyaba.

Upon arrival at the police post, Ms Kade was escorted into a car with private registration number plate and driven off to Jinja Road Police Station for another gruelling five-hour interrogation.

“They asked me what I had heard and seen and I said I had heard nothing. I just left people standing [nearby my workplace] and I went home,” she said, recounting her account to police.

Two police officers at the police post near Naguru Remand Home earlier in the day denied any involvement in inquiries into the shooting of Akena, which has turned into a high-profile case due to the suspect’s hailing from a prominent and well-connected family.

The officers, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, also said initial reports that the eyewitness had been summoned to their police post were untrue.
Hours after her release from Jinja Road Police Station yesterday, Ms Kade said she first reported to the Naguru Remand Home Police Post from where she was transferred to the main station.

“They would ask me different things like where the cars were coming from, how they were parked,” she said.

“I told them I was facing in one direction and I didn’t really know what happened,” she added.

The junior police officers’ refusal to divulge any information about the case is unsurprising because a sense of fear has gripped individuals, including medical workers who prior treated the deceased, to hush up on information.

Privy to details
Detectives and health workers have been uncooperative about our inquiries and, for example, a doctor on duty at Victoria University Hospital, the purported first medical facility to receive Akena after the shooting, on Wednesday threatened to telephone security to arrest our reporter who approached him for information on the matter.

The gun or cartridge of the bullet used to shoot Akena is yet to be traced; police are holding onto the postmortem report; there is no trace of blood in the evacuation car or either of four sites that detectives, as late as yesterday, reconstructed as likely scenes of crime.

“I am scared; in all my life I have never been in police custody,” Ms Kade said during yesterday’s interview and declined for her photograph to be published.

Editor’s note: We have respected the request and will, for now, not publish the photographs we have.