The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The murder of Col Ibrahim Abiriga, the former Arua Municipality Member of Parliament remains a mystery more than six months after the tragedy.
Records at the Criminal Investigations Directorate indicate that the only information available about the murder are ballistic analysis report, the Scene Of Crime report, mobile phone analysis, call print outs and seven witness statements, all of them different in the description of the gunmen and the shooting.
These were all collected during the first month after the June 8, 2018 incident. Abiriga was gunned down together with his brother Said Butele Kongo, as they approached their home in Kirinyabigo, Kawanda in Wakiso District. The shooting was not any different from the assassination of Muslim clerics, Major Muhammad Kiggundu, State Prosecutor Joan Kagezi and Police boss Andrew Felix Kaweesi.
The file is being handled by the department of Homicide and Kampala Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigations department led by Johnson Olal. According to one of the detectives involved in the investigations, after analyzing all the reports and findings from the scene of crime, there was nothing to go with and proceed with investigations.
Initially, a phone found at the Scene of Crime was thought to be the lead that would help detectives solve the murder questions. But that lead hit a dead end when it was revealed that the phone was dropped by a 19-year-old resident of Kirinyabigo who rushed to the scene after the shooting.
The 19-year-old was put into custody for almost two months and extensively interrogated by the Internal Security Organisation over his alleged involvement in Abiriga’s murder. Evidence proved him innocent.
Witness statements indicate that two assassins riding on a motorcycle showered the vehicle Volkswagen Beetle registration number UBB 706D which Abiriga and Kongo were seated in with bullets until they were both dead.
A CID detective who preferred anonymity told Uganda Radio Network that the police are very cautious not to arrest innocent people without a lead and concrete evidence.
The police Criminal Investigations Directorate spokesperson Vincent Ssekate declined to comment on the Abiriga murder investigation on the ground that he did not have the information about the matter.
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