Police kill suspect, torture relatives after failed gun search

Attack. An illustration of a police officer beating up a suspect after officers failed to find a gun they accused him of possessing. PHOTO BY Alex Kwizera

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Investigation. In this second installment of our series, Blood, Guns and Politics in Teso, Ivan Okuda reports about the torture by police of an elderly couple and killing of their son after failing to retrieve an illegal gun they alleged he possessed. A police commander called the extra-judicial killing a “mistake” and offered maize flour and beans to feed mourners

On March 2, 2015, Peter Egwalu received a telephone call from one Olobo, seeking information on the whereabouts of the former’s brother, Moses Okello. It was an unusual curt conversation that left Egwalu suspicious. Something ominous was underway, he thought.
At 8pm that day, he nonetheless escorted his brother to Kalaki, which in the village parlance is called ‘centre’ --- the local euphemism for an urbanised area.

This hamlet in the eastern Serere District has scattered social amenities. It is a spatial hodge podge; bars, cinema halls, a mini-market, shops and makeshift structures as well as a stage for commercial motorcycle services or boda boda.
It is here that many men huddle in the afternoon to pass time. For Okello, the March 2 meeting with a stranger was defining and, sadly, it sealed his fate.

“You asked to see Okello, here he is. What is the issue?” his brother Egwalu said in Kumam, recounting their rendezvous at the ‘centre’.

Their uncle Nicholas Enyoku translated the narrative into English for this writer. Surprisingly, Mr Olobo, who sought for the meeting, never said much. The trio instead spoke more about “any other business”; from football to local politics before retreating home at 8pm. The brothers walked home and wished Olobo, their strange guest a goodnight.

Then trouble struck almost immediately. On arrival home, Mr Egwalu said he was alarmed by the sight of about eight uniformed and armed police men and two unarmed civilians.

They promptly pounced on him, overpowered and rolled him on the ground and unleashed indiscriminate kicks and punches on him. They also stabbed him multiple times.

“Who were you with at the ‘centre’?” one of the assailants asked and he responded: “I was with Olobo and Okello.”

“We don’t know Olobo. Take us to Okello,” one yelled. They frog-marched him to his brother’s house only to find Ms Acen as Okello had not yet reached home. When she got out, she cut short her brother-in-law’s narration. One of the attackers slapped her hard and held the neck in choke position as another police man allegedly swept her legs with a powerful kick, sending her thundering down.
The others continued beating Egwalu. Okello showed up at the height of this display of violence to clinically-executed smashing knocks on his knees with a gun butt and batons. He fell onto the ground, writhing.

The trio was bundled onto a police truck and driven shortly to Akure police post and a few minutes to Orungo, a county in Amuria District represented by Internal Affairs minister Jeje Odongo. Their mother was the target.

In two hours, an operation led by officers from Soroti District had stretched to the third district. In Orungo the old woman was called out but declined to open the door. Her husband Mzee Eyadu did and was beaten to pulp forcing his ageing wife to capitulate. Husband and wife got a beating as their son struggled for breath on the floor, their other son (Egwalu) and his sister-in-law (wife to Okello) continued to be tortured in a similar fashion.

Ms Acen says: “I saw one police man get a stick and stab my son’s chest around where the heart is and telling me to watch as my son dies.” She broke down midway the narration. The conversation froze.
“My son then told me, ‘mama (mother); pray for me, my time has ended’.” Outside, dark clouds drifted menacingly with a blast of thunder as though to send rain in Teso sub-region this hot and dry season.

According to Ms Acen, the policemen threw Okello, his wife and brother on the back of the pickup and the gun-wielding officers sat on the improvised back seat, resting their heavy boots on the victims.

And what was Okello’s crime?
“They kept saying he had a gun which he used to steal,” she says. Between Amuria and Soroti, Okello died as his wife and brother watched. Police dumped the body in the mortuary and incarcerated the others at Soroti central police station. A family once united was now separated by death.
In the course of the interview, Mr Ebitu gathered some strength to speak.

“I didn’t know all this was happening until at about 8am as I sat over tea with my brother. A police man [who identified] himself as Hassan Nyene called me to Soroti CPS,” he said. Mr Ebitu was initially reluctant to go but did anyway.

“‘I am sorry, please forgive us’,” is all the officer told him in his office. Ebitu was confused. The police officer struggled with how to break the sad, frightening news.

“We had an operation to get a suspect but my officers erred and the suspect didn’t come alive. I am told he is your son. Can we go to the mortuary you identify him?” said Ebitu, quoting officer Nyene.
The Kaberemaido farmer wished this was a case of mistaken identity. At the mortuary, the officer and Mr Ebitu checked three bodies as his heart skipped beats. The fourth was that of Okello, all disfigured and mutilated --- a horrifying sight.

“How did my son get here?” he questioned in a rage and Nyene, looking remorseful, reportedly retorted: “‘It was a mistake. Please forgive us’.”

“Okoka epipili, epipili (my son, it is painful, it hurts),” the father said during the interview, pushing away yellow bananas and milk tea he had been served as he struggled to contain his emotions.
The brother interjected to console him as the rest of the family members broke down into wailing, almost simultaneously.

Back at Soroti CPS, the father demanded for a postmortem and full account of circumstances leading to his son’s demise and unconditional release of Okello’s brother and wife.

A senior officer, only identified as Acaye, asked Ebitu, “‘By the way, do you want compensation’?” He was given a coffin, cement, a bag of maize flour and beans and that was all. He was now expected to go and bury his son and when he protested, the officers put the corpse in their truck and sped with it to Kaberemaido and left.

Attempts to arrest officers
Getting the officers arrested proved a battle. First senior officers protected them until they approached Soroti Development Association and NGO Network (Sodann) which mounted pressure through radio stations and got a feared senior detective, Okello Obura, who at the time headed the criminal intelligence and investigations desk in East Kyoga region, to act.

Mr Obura would later be tried at a police court for meeting First Lady Janet Museveni without permission over another murder file involving politicians from Teso. The eight officers were eventually arrested and await their trial to take off.

One suspect, a soldier, escaped and the deputy regional police Crime Intelligence chief who commanded the operation was quietly moved to a lower deployment in Kumi District.

“If they come and kill our children how do they expect us to dig? Who will take care of this young woman and her children who have now dropped out of school? And who gives them the right to kill suspects? Is that what the law says?” asked Mr Ebitu.
“Epipili, epipili,” he mourned in Ateso meaning (it is painful), stalling the interview for about 20 minutes.

Then I ask: “Are you confident you will get justice for your son?”
“We have been to that big flat in Naguru [Uganda Police Force headquarters], but [the Inspector General of Police] Kale Kayihura keeps dodging us. Each time we go there we are told to return only to be told the same thing,” said Mr Ebitu.

Attempts to get a comment from Gen Kayihura were futile. An aide who picked his telephone repeatedly promised to pass our inquiries to him but this newspaper received no feedback.

Human rights lawyer and executive director Centre for Media and Justice, Mr Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, is currently representing the family in a case challenging the actions of government through its police officers.

He said in an interview: “That man was tortured to death. The police suspected he had a gun and when they failed to get it, he was killed after series of torture. Of course, he cannot come back so the only remedy the family is seeking is damages. Mediation with the Attorney General failed when he offered Shs25m and our argument was that this man left young children who still need support for years to come; so, we demanded Shs300m and the matter is in court.”

— In the third installment of our series, Blood, Guns and Politics in Teso, read in tomorrow’s edition about how a machete-wielding gang attacked a famous doctor in his garden mid-morning, killing him and a sister.