KIDNAP: 12 arrested after demanding sh25m ransom for 7-year-old-boy

Masaka, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The police flying squad in Masaka district have arrested twelve people in connection with the kidnapping of a seven-year-old boy and demanding a 25 million shillings ransom.

The victim, who is a pupil at Ddimo Primary school in Kyesiiga sub-county, Masaka district, went missing last Friday, before his abductors started asking for a ransom from his parents.

Twaha Kasirye, the Greater Masaka Regional Police Spokesperson, indicates the flying squad mounted an operation in which they successfully rescued the victim, who was unhurt and accordingly arrested 12 suspects.

He says the suspects were trailed in a motor vehicle, disguised as a taxi, in which they were driving with the victim to different locations between Masaka and Kyotera.

Kasirye indicates that suspects include Nelson Lutaaya, the driver, Pius Tusuubira, Goreth Nambajjo, Prosy Namugamba, Rose Mary Namukwaya, Yuda Kasumba, Matia Sserugo and Tonny Ssikyomu.

The others are Robert Yawe Kiwendo, Hussein Muhammad, Denis Maseruka, and Paul Kiwendo, who are related. He says the suspects have established a broader network, which they have been using to demand money from the victim’s parents.

According to him, the police tracked suspects using the different telephone lines they were using to call the parents until they were arrested from a fuel station in Kalisiizo town council in Kyotera district, where one of the suspects had gone to pick up money.

Kasirye says the suspects are detained at Masaka Central Police Station pending prosecution in the courts of law.

Yudaya Nassali, a mother to the victim, says that the suspects targeted them after they had just sold a larger stock of silverfish.

According to her, one of the suspects was once an adopted child in their home, who knew their lines of business and the properties they owned. She reveals that they had paid part of the ransom through different mobile money lines, and the suspects had come to pick up the balance on their arrest.

The victim told police that he was abducted using a motorcycle on his way to school in the morning when the abductors duped him into taking them to his mother’s shop.

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