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Maid 'raped at gunpoint' in police officer's house
What you need to know:
- The woman alleges that she was first raped on the night of July 25, at gunpoint.
Police are investigating allegations that a 23-year-old maid was raped at gunpoint inside a house owned by a police officer.
No suspect has been arrested or named in the case which was booked at Nateete Police Division under reference number 688/2023.
The house at Nalumunye Village, Rubaga Division, Kampala City, is owned by Superintendent of Police Gilbert Bwana Arinaitwe.
The woman alleges that she was first raped on the night of July 25, at gunpoint. She claims to have been raped again on seven occasions thereafter, while being threatened not to report the matter.
During this time, the woman, whose identity has been withheld, claims her assailant confined her in the house with little or no food. He later refused to pay her salary.
The woman told police that she later found a way to report her predicament to a friend, who passed on the information to the local council defence secretary.
According to a source, the defence secretary went and picked the woman from the home and escorted her to the police, where she filed the rape complaint.
When this publication contacted Kampala Metropolitan Police spokespersons about the case, they declined to comment.
But police sources privy to the matter, who declined to be named because it remains an open investigation, said the woman had been sent to a medical facility for examination.
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Sources said she was later handed over to a shelter owned by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) for protection while investigations continue. The managers of the NGO declined to comment, saying the case was so sensitive.
It was not immediately clear who lived at the house in question. The homeowner, SP Bwana, shot to prominence in 2011 when he was photographed using his pistol to break the window of a car in which Opposition politician Dr Kizza Besigye and his aides had barricaded themselves during a standoff with police at Mulago Roundabout near Kampala City centre.
In this file photo, Gilbert Bwana Arinaitwe uses the butt of his pistol to smash a window of opposition strong man Dr Kizza Besigye’s car in Kampala in 2011. PHOTO/NMG
In a telephone interview with this publication on Tuesday night, SP Bwana said he wasn’t aware of the alleged rape at his house.
“It is you telling me about the rape case. I am not aware of it,” he said.
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The officer added that he was assisting the police in their investigations and that he had recorded a statement to aid those efforts.
He said the media should wait for the findings of the police investigation before publishing the story.
“Police investigations aren’t done in the media. You get it? It is better you allow police investigations and they have finalised then you can make your report,” he said. “The thing is. You people, when you are looking for what to transmit in the media and you know that anything about Arinaitwe Bwana sells like hot cake but remember it is painful. They are trying to taint my name,” he said.
Contacted for comment last night, the commandant of the Police Standards Unit, Ms Sarah Kibwika, said she had not got information about the case.
“You need to talk to the Criminal Investigations Department. They handle such criminal cases.”
