ANALYSIS: Kanyamunyu murder case

Museveni sucked in

Part of the reason for the peaked public interest in the case is because some of the suspects, the Kanyamunyu’s are relatives of the most powerful families in the nation’s politics and business. The prime suspect, 39-year old Mathew Kanyamunyu is the Chief Executive Officer, Quantum Logistics, a little known logistics company.

He and his brothers are grandsons of the legendary past chairman of Uganda’s oldest political party the Democratic Party (DP), Mzee Boniface Byanyima. The Byanyima name has been very influential in Ankole and Uganda politics since the 1960s.

President Yoweri Museveni was also partly raised in the Byanyima household. The people in whose home the President grew up with, like Edith Byanyima and Anthony Byanyima have been thronging the various police detention centres where the suspects are being held. Even Winnie Byanyima, wife of leading opposition figure Kizza Besigye, has been sucked into the case.

Winnie Byanyima who is the Oxfam International Executive director sent a message of sympathy to the victim, Akena’s family on twitter. She noted that the suspect, Mathew, is her niece.

Possibly because of the case’s political overtones, three things appear to have happened. First, sometime before Nov.22, the DPP was convinced to sanction charges of murder against Kanyamunyu and his brother Joseph Kanyamunyu, and Munwangari.

Knowledgeable observers say this does not in any way indicate that the police now have a water-tight case. Instead it could mean that although the DPP threw back the empty file at the police – meaning that the suspects who had spent almost two weeks in detention should have been freed; the police have chosen to continue holding them in what could be a public relations exercise. It is feared that releasing them could inflame tensions.

The Independent has learnt that President Museveni personally asked the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura to attend the victim’s burial, which took place in Kitgum on Nov.16. The plan here also was to calm tempers that threatened to flare by promising a comprehensive unbiased investigation.

Secondly, the police appear to have made a deliberate decision to feed the public frenzy with morsels of incomplete information through the media.

Four days after the incident, Police Spokesperson, Felix Kaweesi, told The Independent that the bullet that led to Akena’s death was fired from a pistol and was found lodged in his large intestine. He said police had just zeroed in on what they suspected to be the scene of crime. It was not inside the Game Lugogo/Forest Mall precincts as initially reported but adjacent to it, along Jinja Road. Kaweesi said that is where the victim’s car was found. But, he added, the police was also following on details in the victim’s `dying declaration’ as narrated by his brother. In this version, the victim said he was shot at Forest Mall by the people who took him to hospital; meaning Kanyamunyu and Munwangari. When asked whether it is possible the victim was shot at Forest Mall but the car `somehow’ ended up away from the first scene of crime, Kaweesi said it was possible.

“We are investigating all that,” he added.