Councillor detained for faking kidnap

Police in Masaka District have detained Mr Ibra Kabugo Mugendawala, a councillor representing Ndagwe Sub-county in Lwengo District, for reportedly providing false information about the alleged kidnap and death of her daughter.

Mr Mugendawala reported a case of kidnap of his daughter Zahara Nakafeero at Masaka Central Police Station a day after she went missing on November 23 last year.

Nakafeero had just sat for her Senior Two promotional examinations at Kirimya Vocational and Secondary School in Masaka District.

He later purportedly told police that he had started receiving calls from unknown people demanding for money to release the girl.

Although the girl was later discovered on January 8, police called for new inquiries against Mr Mugendawala citing a number of loopholes in the statements he had made.

Mr Lameck Kigozi, the southern regional police spokesperson, said yesterday that Mr Mugendawala will be charged with providing false information to police.
“His file will be forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for further guidance before being arraigned before court,” Mr Kigozi said yesterday.

Contradictory statements
During the alleged disappearance of Nakafeero, Mr Mugendawala was making contradictory statements to police and the media.
In December last year, he informed the media that his daughter was kidnapped and believed to be in the cruel hands of kidnappers who demanded a ransom of Shs5m to release her body.

He attracted a number of sympathisers who contributed the money which he later said he had dropped at one of the places around Kabaka Anjagala Road in Kampala upon the direction of the kidnappers.

After police discovered the girl was still alive, Mr Mugendawala declined to talk about kidnappers, saying anonymous callers could have been staged by the girl’s uncles with support from her mother who lives abroad.

However, yesterday after police interrogation, Mr Mugendawala said he was ‘mislead by a witch doctor ’whom he contacted’ about the whereabouts of his daughter.
“The witch doctor told us the girl was dead and she started demanding for money to trace the body,” Mr Mugendawala said
He, however, failed to explain and give the exact telephone number that called him demanding for money.

Mr Kigozi said there are no anonymous calls to Mr Mugendawala’s telephone according to telephone call printouts secured from telecommunication companies.

While police was reuniting the girl with her father, she [Nakafeero] refuted claims that she had been kidnapped saying, after leaving school, she visited a friend in Mukono District, and did not return home with fear that she will be beaten by her father whom she described as short tempered.

Last year, Police recorded similar fake kidnap cases and several suspects who faked own kidnaps got arrested in various parts of the country.

Other cases
On May 8, court in Kampala remanded a 19-year-old student for staging her own kidnap with the intention of extorting money from her mother.

The suspect, Ms Peace Ansiimirwe, a resident of Bushenyi-Ishaka in Bushenyi District appeared before Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Samuel Kagoda denied the charges.

On April 15, police also arrested 21-year-old Mariam Uwase who allegedly wanted to extort money from her boyfriend.
On April 24, police in Mbarara District said they had arrested a woman for allegedly faking her own kidnap and demanding more than Shs3 million ransom from her family.