New details show how killers attack boda riders

A Kampala suburb, where 22-year-old Derrick Muwonge, a boda boda rider, was brutally killed on June 29, is a danger spot where law enforcement officials knew attackers regularly waylaid riders, but for unknown reasons failed to act.
Our investigations show that a rider, named Issa Gidudu, alias Mukwasi, was killed near the same spot eight weeks earlier.
The footage of Mukwasi’s killing captured by a nearby closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera was shared with police, sources familiar with the inquiries say.

But no detective appeared to follow the matter and the individuals who tendered the video evidence were neither interviewed, according to highly-placed sources.
As a result, informers decided to first release the video footage of the second killing on social media, where it went viral, before sharing it with the police in the wake of mounting public pressure.

Police
The police was yesterday unable to explain their initial inaction and Kampala Metropolitan spokesperson Patrick Onyango said he was not aware of the April 1 killing.
“We have [now] deployed adequately…,” he said regarding what police had done to bolster security in Kakeeka Village in Rubaga Division.
Our investigations show that the first killing was captured by a CCTV camera installed at a nursery school, which also captured Muwonge’s killing two months later, on June 29.
“When the first incident happened, we shared the CCTV camera footage with the police, but they did not respond,” one source said, adding: “So when the second incident happened, we felt it wise to share the footage so that it goes viral [on social media] before releasing it to the police.”

To the informers, sharing the footage with detectives would not achieve justice for the victims.
Police yesterday announced that they, with the help of informers and CCTV images, arrested John Bosco Mugisha, aka Mukiga, as a prime suspect in the June 29 killing of Muwonge.

He was picked up from Nsiike 1 in Ndeeba, a thriving business hub in Rubaga Division, detained at Katwe Police Station from where he was by press time due to be transferred to Old Kampala Police Station.
Upon arrest, Mugisha confirmed participation in Muwonge’s killing and told interrogators that a mob in Makindye on July 3 lynched his accomplice, a one Young Mulo, implicated in another motorcycle theft.
Business on Kivebulaya Road and Kakeeka Village in general was normal when our reporter visited the place yesterday, and the police deployment and patrols that spokesman Onyango referred to was not visible.

A review of the video footage of the April 1 killing of Mukwasi, then a boda boda rider at a stage in Kimeeme Stage in Kumbuzi, show that the assailants used a similar tactic.
It shows a pair conducting an earlier reconnaissance in the area and returning in the deep of the night to ambush their victims, apparently hired by one their collaborators who disguise as a customer.
As it approaches midnight, one man wearing sneakers, a black pair of jean trousers and grey jumper emerges from a hideout and undertakes a second check on a dead alley road, which partly leads into a vacant plot and a neighbouring gated house.

The man returns to his hiding spot against a perimeter wall fence and beckons a colleague to join him as he removes the jumper, revealing a white shirt. Shortly afterward, a motorcycle head lamp beams from a distance, alerting the duo to sprint ahead and lie in wait.
The passenger on the motorcycle, as it can be observed, is a co-conspirator. He flags the rider to stop at the point where his accomplices were waiting, attacking and overpowering him on the spot.
One of the assailants rides the motorcycle a short distance away, in the direction were the boda boda had emerged from, and stops as he accelerates the motorcycle with full headlights.
Then the two men, who remained behind to finish off their victim appear, and in haste, the one wearing sneakers and black jeans rides off the motorcycle.

It is this incident in which Mukwasi was killed, according to residents.
A similar episode played out in the CCTV footage when Muwonge was killed on June 29.
Two men can be spotted conducting surveillance hours before staging an ambush. One hides a claw hammer at the scene, and they vanish.

They return after midnight, this time targeting Muwonge whom the two accomplices had hired to drop them off.

They stop him. One passenger chock-holds the rider and drags him down as the other grabs the motorcycle, which he parks nearby.
Muwonge fights for his life as he is being strangled.
The latter’s colleague hops and picks up the claw hammer they had hidden and returns to crack the skull of a subdued Muwonge after removing his helmet.
They left him for dead, and fled with his motorcycle.
But that was not before one of the attackers frisked their victim’s pockets and removed his mobile phone.
Mukwasi was a resident of Kibade near Diniya Mosque in Kabowa, off Masaka highway.
He leaves behind a widow and seven children. He was buried in Bukiti in Mbale.

“We last saw him on March 31; he said he was going to work late because he had a sick person. He was hired by two passengers to drop them off in Mengo. His intention was to ride straight home but he decided to drop them off to Mengo, so he went,” the deceased’s colleague, Mr Yosiya Kiviri, narrated of the former’s last moments.
At Kimeeme Stage, where he based, his colleagues are still mourning a man they said loved his children exceptionally.
“Every weekend he would never go home without meat for his children,” Mr Kiviri said. Mukwasi’s eldest daughter is in Senior Two.
Muwonge, nick-named Dog City, was a boda boda operator at Mini-price in downtown Kampala and lived in Nabweru South 1 in Wakiso District.
He bought his motorcycle from a one Yonah Nasasira at Shs3.15m, three weeks before meeting his gruesome death.

We traced Mr Nasasira to his home in Nabweru South 1 and he confirmed selling a motorcycle to Mr Muwonge.
“He was brought to me by a broker, initially he paid Shs2m and later completed the payment after I gave him a logbook in my name. I got that motorcycle from Tugende on December 16, 2017. When I was remaining with a Shs1.46m debt, I cleared the balance and I got a discount of Shs0.2m,” Mr Nasasira said.

However, the late Muwonge’s elder brother, Mr Patrick Muyombya, said he had failed to find the log book in respect of the motorcycle among the deceased’s properties.
When Mr Muwonge’s landlord, Mr Ronald Mutebi, saw the clip of the ghastly killing of his tenant, he broke into Mr Muwonge’s two-roomed house, took a sub-hoofer, a computer monitor, two pairs of jeans, a music system and a decoder.
“When he realised that the boy had been killed, he broke into his room and stole his items,” Nabweru South 1 zone chairperson, Ms Dorothy Nankya, said.

She said the deceased allegedly owed Mr Mutebi Shs186,000 in rent arrears.
Following a complaint by Mr Patrick Muyombya at Nabweru police, Mr Mutebi was arrested and on July 7 charged at Nabweru Magistrate’s Court with burglary and theft. He was remanded to Kisangati prison.
“I was surprised to find the landlord drinking in a bar...,” Muyombya narrated.
The landlord reportedly collapsed when the LC chairperson introduced herself.

Mr Muyombya, a truck driver on Kafumbe-Mukasa road, is the deceased’s elder brother.
He narrated the ordeal of their search to identify the body of their brother after initially refusing to accept that he was dead.
“I had watched the video, but I did not think it was my brother. It was the lady where he usually ate super who realised that he had not been to her place for two days and she called my elder brother,” Mr Muyombya said.

The lady referred the family to a video clip on social media from which she had recognised Muwonge’s jacket.
Their other brother, Mr Stephen Bamutange, also a truck driver, went to the morgue and identified his body.
“We found [his body] in the city mortuary, the right side of his skull had a deep depression,” said Mr Bamutange.

Admit
Upon arrest, Mugisha confirmed participation in Muwonge’s killing and told interrogators that a mob in Makindye on July 3 lynched his accomplice, a one Young Mulo, implicated in another motorcycle theft.
Business on Kivebulaya Road and Kakeeka Village in general was normal when our reporter visited the place yesterday, and the police deployment and patrols that spokesman Onyango referred to was not visible.
A review of the video footage of the April 1 killing of Mukwasi, then a boda boda rider at a stage in Kimeeme Stage in Kumbuzi, show that the assailants used a similar tactic.

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