Suspected contract killers elude police for five years

In 2008 reports of hacking people in their homes at night started unfolding in Kyanamukaaka, Masaka District.

After a public outcry, the Inspector General of Police, Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura, sent a team led by the then director of Police Commissariat, Mr Asan Kasingye, and then head of the Rapid Response Unit, Mr David Magara, to investigate the murders under Operation Mauaji in June 2009.

Six months later, the police chief and his team said they had nipped the problem in the bud.

At least 42 suspected contract killers were arrested and taken to court, although most of them were released later. No conviction of these suspects is known.

But five years later, the same problem still prevails in the same area and is spreading even wider into neighbouring districts.

New cases have been reported in Kampala, Wakiso, Mityana, Luweero and Nakaseke.

Last week, a similar gruesome killing was witnessed in Rakai District where the criminals used the same method to kill nine family members.

On October, 2, last year at around 10:40pm at Kyanamukaaka, suspected thugs dug a hole into a house wall of George William Ssenteza, hacked him, his wife Rose Nakate and their three children.

Similar tactics
The south region police spokesman, Mr Noah Sserunjogi, told the Saturday Monitor on Tuesday that the method used to kill the victims was not any different from that of Kyanamukaaka.

“It is the same method of gaining entrance to the house and the same way of killing the victims,” Mr Sserunjogi said.

Surprisingly, during the attacks, no marks of a struggle between the attackers and victims were seen at the scenes of crime, nor do the neighbours hear of any scuffle or digging through the wall.

The biggest suspicion is that the criminals use sedatives to make their victims lose consciousness before gaining access and killing them.

But police have never gone into the depth of finding out whether sedatives are used in the process. Three years later, police is yet to get to the bottom of the crime.

When the same question of use of sedatives was raised by residents in Busunju, Mityana District to the deputy Criminal Investigations Director in-charge of intelligence, Mr Joel Aguma, he said they had not got any evidence to that effect.

In all cases, police have attributed the motive of the killings to land conflicts or love affairs, since no property or money is robbed.