Police trap and grab escaped gang leader

Police in Kampala have taken into custody a notorious gang leader nearly two months after he pulled off a daring escape.

Twenty six-year-old Ronald Mbaziira a.k.a Kagezi was arrested inside a lodging house just outside the city limits in Kajjansi on Entebbe Road.

His almost fairy-tale time on the run ended in the late afternoon of Sunday, July 30 when he made the mistake of arranging to meet an underage girl at a lodge. 

Law enforcement listening-in on the cellphone numbers of his known contacts reacted quickly, setting the trap into which he walked.

A repeat offender and ex-convict facing more than 20 other violent crime charges, Mbaziira has been on the loose since June 9. In that time, police say the suspect carried out even more house break-ins.

He had fled from lawful custody while handcuffed just outside the city suburb of Makindye as officers took him for medical processing.

All suspects in capital crimes undergo a mandatory medical examination by a police surgeon. Mbaziira took advantage of this window to slip away and flee.

Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesman SSP Patrick Onyango said on Tuesday the arrest is good news for police efforts against an increase in home invasions, robberies, and other violent crimes.

“Mbaziira has been re-arrested by our crime intelligence team that have been tracking him for more than two months since he escaped from lawful custody. We are processing his crime files and preparing to produce him to court like we did to his accomplices,” SSP Onyango said.

“Using technology and human intelligence, we traced the boda boda cyclists he often hired. They gave us clues to his whereabouts and contacts. The contacts were arrested and used in his arrest,” he added.

“The fugitive called one of his associates to fetch a 14-year-old female lover from her home and take her to a lodge where he would find her. We trailed them to the lodge.

“On Sunday, at around 4pm, he entered the lodge to meet the girl, only to be arrested,” he said.

Mbaziira is believed to be the leader of a gang that operated almost across Kampala. The gang was dismantled after a random stop-and-search police operation in late May led to the arrest of most of its members.

 Accomplices described him as a bit of a daredevil – which characteristic showed when he telephoned and taunted no less a law enforcement officer than the police’s Director of Crime Intelligence, Brig Chris Ddamulira, while still on the run.

On Sunday afternoon, Mbaziira told police that he called Brig Ddamulira and other officers in good faith.

“I contacted him to hand myself in. In fact, the last time I contacted him, I was in Kampala walking towards his office in Kololo, but his response was so harsh. I turned back and remained in hiding,” Mbaziira said.

Some of the officers Mbaziira called say he often belittled them, pompously laying down terms for his surrender.

But how did he break free?  “I freed one hand from the handcuffs. Then I used my chances to escape because I knew that they were going to charge me with a gun-related offence and I would never leave jail,” Mbaziira said. 

“I was running as I waited for a bullet to hit me dead. But I jumped from one trench after another without a bullet hitting me until they lost track of me,” he said. 

Mbaziira ran up to a friend’s place in Ssembuule zone, Rubaga Division, where he used a safety pin to unlock the handcuffs. He laid low for two to three weeks, before returning to a life of crime having travelled miles away to Nyendo in Masaka. 

In one of many previous home invasions, the Mbaziira gang broke into the Kyengera home of Commissioner of Prisons Gervase Tumuhimbise whom they assaulted with his family members on January 18. 

The attackers also made off with Mr Tumuhimbise’s pistol.

Police had failed to break that case until luck came their way on the night of June 7. Mbaziira and four others; Jamil Ssendawula, 32; Nicholas Ssebandeke, 29; David Mugula, 27 and Fahad Akandwanaho, 18, were stopped at a routine checkpoint in Makindye. Housebreaking tools were found hidden inside the car, prompting their arrest.

 SSP Onyango said upon interrogation it was established that the gang was headed for the upscale Bunga where they planned to rob a businessman.

“At the suspects’ homes, we recovered items that had been robbed in previous incidents that we were investigating. That is how we were able to connect them to violent crimes in the city suburbs. In one of the incidents at Kyanja, the suspects were captured by CCTV camera,” he said then. 

In the first arrest, Mbaziira had led detectives to the home of a girlfriend (names withheld) in Ngobe Central Zone, Mutundwe Parish of Bunamwaya Division where he claimed to have stashed stolen items.

 And so, as the manhunt for him intensified, investigating officers questioned his suspected lovers.

“One of his partners said Mbaziira returned home with a pistol and told her that it was for his relative working for a security agency. She said he told her that the relative deserted and fled abroad, leaving him with the gun,” SSP Onyango said. 

She later told police that when Mbaziira’s statements about the pistol were not adding up, she threw it down a pit latrine. Police dug up the pit latrine and recovered the gun.

 The pursuit of Mbaziira intensified further after another robbery of Shs90 million from one Mr Julius Muzito’s home at Makindye on July 29 – the day before the fugitive was trapped. 

The Makindye robbery bore the telltale signs of Mbaziira’s methods, a fact which caught police attention and his eventual re-arrest.

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