How taxi driver was robbed, murdered

On April 4, two people hired James Ahimbisibwe, a taxi driver who operates at Buremba stage in Mbarara City, for a trip. That was the last time he was seen alive.

His family got worried when he did not return home that day and attempts to contact him on phone were futile because his phone number had been switched off.

They reported him missing and police commenced investigations.

Police tracked his last mobile phone activities to Masaka City. They suspected that he could have been kidnapped by thugs or arrested by other security agencies.

However, other security agencies denied having him in their custody.

Four days after Ahimbisibwe’s disappearance, a man drove a Toyota Wish to a wash bay in Kampala City and told workers at the facility that he was selling it at just Shs4 million, asking them to connect him to buyers.

Mr Charles Twiine, the spokesperson of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, says the workers became suspicious that the car could have been stolen because a Toyota Wish in a condition like the one the man was selling costs between Shs15 million and Shs18 million.

“They informed the police who followed up the matter. Our officers arrested the first suspect, who was selling the car, and asked about the documentation of the vehicle. He told us that it was his friend, who was owns the car,” Mr Twiine says.

The suspect led the detectives to his colleague, who could also not explain the ownership of the vehicle.

Twiine says both were arrested and during interrogation they confessed that they stole the car from a special hire taxi  driver in Mbarara before killing him.

The detectives contacted Mbarara Central Police Station and the officer in-charge confirmed that a special hire taxi driver had disappeared four days ago.

Police say the suspects later took detectives to Luweero District where they had dumped Ahimbisibwe’s body.

Detectives discovered that a body had been found in the same area a day after Ahimbisibwe disappeared.

A police report from Luweero District indicated that an unidentified body had been picked and taken to hospital where it wasn’t claimed and thereafter buried in a public cemetery.

Relatives of the deceased were able to identify Ahimbisibwe’s body using photographs of the body that police officers had taken.

They also verified that the recovered car was his.

Mr Twiine says the two suspects have recorded confession statements and are being held on charges of aggravated robbery and murder of Ahimbisibwe.

He says the suspect, however, did not reveal the methods they used to kill the deceased or the exact spot where the murder was committed.

“We shall get all those details with time. We are yet to get a court order to exhume the body for further examination,” he adds.