Gen Katumba Attackers: Killer Guns Recovered, More Arrested, One Killed

July 2, 2021

Security has announced the arrest of two other persons suspected to have participated in the attempted assassination of Gen Katumba Wamala on June,1, 2021.

Addressing journalists on Friday, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Maj Gen Paul Lokech said on Thursday and Friday night, security basing on information from the earlier arrested suspects carried out yet another operation in different parts of greater Kampala Metropolitan Area.

He mentioned that during the night-long operation, Juma Said(a chapati seller) and Juma Sserwadda, both residents of Namuwongo were arrested and are currently in custody.

“Before the main shooter was killed, he had informed our team that the gun was with one Mukwasi. However, upon arrest, Mukwasi claimed that Amin also known as Mustapha Ramathan Kawawa had picked the gun from him but upon arrest, he claimed the gun had been handed over to Juma Sserwadda,”Lokech told journalists.

The deputy police chief explained that the ordeal took security to Kagoma and later Nansana in a bid to solve the puzzle on where the killer guns had been kept but noted that later, Amin opened up to say the gun was with a chapatti seller in Namuwongo identified as Juma Said, prompting security to raid his home.

“When we went to his home in Kanyogoga zone, Bukasa parish in Namuwongo and upon interrogation, Juma Said opened up that the guns had been kept under a chicken shelter. We found two SMG rifles and one pistol properly wrapped and concealed underground,” he said.

He noted that as operatives were searching the home of Juma Said, Amin tried to escape, prompting security to shoot him dead in the resultant scuffle.

Killer guns

Gen Lokech told journalists that at the home of Juma Said, a chapatti seller in Namuwongo, the two suspected killer guns of SMG make and a pistol were recovered and on subjecting them to the forensic analysis in the police laboratory, it was discovered they had been used in the earlier murders of AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi and Maj Muhammad Kigundu in 2017 and 2016 respectively.

“As our team continued searching the area and investigations continued found very interesting information that helped us solve the puzzle. The rider in an orange jacket captured on CCTV camera was Juma Said. We found the jacket and helmet in the ceiling. That concluded the mystery of the other rider.”

Asked why security didn’t shoot to disable, Lokech, a battle-hardened UPDF general with experience in Somalia against the Al Shabaab militants told journalists that operatives could not take anything to chance.

“We are not dealing with normal but sophisticated people who can kill our force. You remember the story of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed? When dealing with such people, you have to be careful or else they may blow themselves up or kill your troops,”Lokech said in reference to the former leader of the Al Quaeda cell in East Africa who masterminded the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

He was killed at a checkpoint in Somalia in 2011.

Lokech insisted that the suspects are part of the larger cell of Allied Democratic Forcers in Uganda but said they are ready to dismantle it as operations continue.

Asked who the owner of the guns is, the police chief said with such groups, there is no particular ownership of the weapons used in operations.

“In terrorism no particular person owns the guns but use them for a particular operation. In total we have four suspects in custody whereas two have been put out of action. This information is for the doubting Thomases to now believe us.”

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