Iron bar hit men brutally end Gatare’s life on New Year’s eve

On New Year’s Eve, Andrew Gatare, 23, and his brother Rodney Gatare, 25, were eagerly preparing for 2015.
Like many people in the world, who believe in celebrating the New Year, they didn’t want such a moment to pass them by.

As the sun set, on December 31, 2014, Rodney, a systems accountant at ministry of Finance and a resident of Kololo, an upscale area in Kampala, thought it would be wise to enter the New Year giving thanks to the Almighty God for all he has given in the past year and ask him for another prosperous 366 days.

The idea of a place, to him to praise his Lord was All Saints Church in the middle of the city centre known for hosting the notables of this country.
Rodney loved his young brother Andrew so much that he wanted to be with him worshipping the Lord as they entered the New Year.

The latter seemed not interested. Andrew, a student of Columbian College in Canada, who had just returned home, roundly rejected the proposal saying he wanted to celebrate the New Year at home at Nyonyi Gardens, Kololo, alone.

At around the same time, between 10 to 15 miles away from Gatare’s home, Geoffrey Lubwama, a resident of Kazo-Angola and Ronald Mutebi, 27, both unemployed, were also meeting fomenting ideas on New Year.

Lubwama, who is also known to his friends as Jeff, had returned from Somalia where he worked for an international agency as a private guard but he had wasted all his resources. Mutebi, a potter, was also literally scavenging for what to eat.

Jeff and Mutebi were also looking up to the heavens for abundance in the New Year.

At Nyonyi Gardens, Andrew and Rodney agree to disagree. Rodney went to All Saints Church and Andrew remained at home.

Beginning of mischief
At Kazo, Jeff and Mutebi agreed to work together so they set off to town without a clear plan but held on hope for a blessed night.

The events that followed would later turn out what would have been a happy New Year into a sad moment and follow a protracted police investigation that tested the detectives’ skills to the limit and a subsequent manhunt.

At 8pm, Mr Patrick Onyango, the spokesman of Kampala Metropolitan Police, says Jeff and Mutebi started drinking alcohol at a village bar. When they didn’t get much get from the bar, they moved to Casablanca in Wandegeya in Kampala.

“There were fewer revellers and close contact was attracting suspicion. So Lubwama (Jeff) advised Mutebi that they move to Nile Avenue in the city centre. They moved,” Mr Onyango says.

Lubwama barely had a coin in his pockets. Mutebi had only Shs4,000.

By midnight, Jeff and Mutebi joined several revellers to welcome the New Year with pomp as they watched fireworks display at Sheraton Kampala Hotel and its vicinity.

An hour later, revellers’ traffic died out along Nile Avenue but Jeff and Mutebi were among the few still pacing the unlit road known for hosting prostitutes.
Police investigations show that the ladies of the night had also taken a break so the road was deserted. Then a tall, slender lonely man came walking.
Mutebi told police that Jeff spotted him moving ahead of them.

“He told me that I should move past the tall man and he (Jeff) remains behind him,” Mutebi says.
As soon as they reached the man, Mutebi claims he did what Jeff told him.

“Jeff came from behind and put the man in stranglehold, he grabbed the phone the man was holding and gave it to me,” Mutebi says.

The tall man, Mutebi says, collapsed on his weight and started struggling to breath.

“Jeff told me to run away from the scene which we did. We got a boda boda motorcyclist a few minutes later and rode us to Kazo,” his police statement read.
In the morning, Rodney told detectives, returned from the fellowship only to find his young brother, Andrew, missing.

“He asked their gatekeeper where his brother was only to be told that he checked out an hour before midnight on December 31,” read the statement to police.

They waited for him in vain. Due to impatience, they went to Jinja Road Police Station where they inquired whether they had heard of him. Police had not entered any case in which his name appeared. However, they were sent to Mulago National Referral Hospital casualty wing or mortuary to dig more – just in case.

Gatare in mortuary
The news they got at Mulago turned their day upside down. Medics told them that Andrew had been brought had head injuries by a police patrol car and he was admitted in intensive care unit. That he had died at 4pm the same day and the body was kept in the city mortuary.

Police had told medics that the bleeding but motionless Andrew was found at Nile Avenue without any identification and mobile phone.

Something queer rang in the minds of the relatives, they rushed to Central Police Station, Kampala, where they opened a criminal file reference number 54/01/01/2015 in the station diary.

Mr Onyango says when the detectives examining the facts on ground, they suspected Andrew could have been murdered.

“It appeared that he was hit by an object that caused bleeding and his death. Our Officer in Charge of Investigations at Central Police Station, Kampala, put up a team to find the suspects if any,” Mr Onyango explains.

The most important task was to find the mobile phone. A printout was made and it revealed Andrew’s movements to where he was found lying.

“The printout showed the phone was in Kawempe area, which opened our eyes that someone could have hit Andrew and run away with his mobile phone,” he says.
They could not track the phone because it was off.
On January 2, Jeff and Mutebi had spent all the money they had found in Andrew’s wallet. The next day was going to be tough.

“They sold the phone that is worth Shs1m at Shs100,000. The buyer didn’t have all the money so he gave them Shs40,000 and a balance of Shs60,000 remained,” Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesman says.

When the buyer, only identified as Ddamulira got home, he inserted his sim card in a stolen phone and started using it.

Printouts revealed his movements.
Unaware of the history of the mobile phone he was holding, detectives easily lured him for a deal arresting him as soon as he arrived at the meeting venue.

“At first Ddamulira claimed he bought the phone from a vendor and couldn’t recall what the person looked like until our detectives told him that he was being held on a murder charge that he cooperated,” he says.

Ddamulira told detectives who he bought the phone from and pleaded that he cooperates with the police to trace them.

On January 13, 2015, Ddamulira tricked Mutebi into another deal to help police catch him. He rushed over to the meeting point and was arrested. He was then detained at Central Police Station Kampala.
Mutebi explained his whereabouts on the night of December 31, 2014.

“He admitted to have participated in the attack but shifted blame to his friend, Jeff, whom he often described as a hard core criminal. He even led our detectives to Jeff’s home where we arrested him,” Mr Onyango says.

Jeff too admitted to have participated in the attack though he distanced himself from the killing. He told detectives his friend Mutebi hit Andrew with an iron bar on the head and later strangled him.
Police have preferred murder charges on both suspects.

Police report 2013

According to the 2013 Police Annual Crime and Traffic/Road Safety Report, 3,620 (both aggravated and simple) robbery cases were investigated, compared to 4,194 cases in 2012 giving a 15.8 per cent decrease.

Cases of simple robbery (where lethal weapons were not used) were 2,585 compared to 3,126 in 2012 giving a 20.9 per cent decrease, while cases of aggravated robbery (where lethal weapons were used for example firearms, knives and machetes) were 1,035 compared to 1,053 cases in 2012 hence a 1.7 per cent decrease.

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