The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Busia police are holding one of their own for shooting to death the bodyguard of Geoffrey Macho, the incumbent Busia Municipality Member of parliament.
The suspect has only been identified as Corporal Chelangat, the in charge of the Police Flying Squad Unit at Busia central police station. He is accused of shooting to death private Ivan Kakayi who has been guarding Macho for the past one year.
According to preliminary information, Chelangat approached the legislator’s vehicle that was parked along the road in Sofia village at around 11:45 am on Sunday morning shortly after arriving at Devine ministry of deliverance church for prayers.
Macho told journalists that four plain-clothed police officers on motorcycles had earlier on trailed his vehicle for unknown reasons. According to the legislator, he heard gunshots minutes after entering the church, only to see his bodyguard running while making an alarm for help with the flying squad officer in hot pursuit.
He said the flying squad officer followed and shot the deceased on the head.
Rashida Phanice, an eye witness says that he saw two armed men dressed in black and red jackets approaching Macho’s car and shot the bodyguard who attempted to flee but they followed him and shot him in head and fell behind the church building.
Ignatius Bwire, a resident says it is unfortunate that the incident happened in front of Sofia police station in broad daylight.
The Busia Mayor Hassan Bwire Opio says this is the second incident of this nature in his town. He says a driver was also shot dead in a similar manner along Majanji road.
Moses Kakiryo, the Busia District police commander says the officer-in-charge of the flying squad and the officer in-charge crime intelligence have been arrested as prime suspects to help with investigations.
The deceased’s body is lying at Busia health center IV pending postmortem.
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This incident if accurately reported is a clear indicator of the poor quality of training and incompetence of some of these so-called “security operatives”. Any competent security office especially a policeman should be well versed in the circumstances under which deadly force can be used. A suspect who is fleeing and is evidently calling for help cannot be deemed a threat warranting use of deadly force. This story describes a pre-meditated killing in execution style complete with a coup de grace to the head!