Police looking for soft targets as Nambooze is blamed for Abiriga assassination

[caption id="attachment_7414" align="alignright" width="300"] In hot soup: Nambooze[/caption]

June 12, 2018 - The investigation into the death by shooting last Friday of Arua Municipality MP  Colonel Ibrahim Abiriga and his brother cum bodyguard Said Butele is taking a familiar path with police moving to focus public attention on suspects it has little evidence to even support an investigation.

Online News Agency Uganda Radio Network is reporting that police have opened up investigations against Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze Bakireke and three others over incitement or even direct participation in the assassination of Abiriga.

Nambooze is a suspect, on the basis of a video she posted on social media in which she explains the motive behind an incident at parliament when she tried to whisk Abiriga’s yellow cap off his head. Nambooze says the act was intended to show the deceased his vulnerability despite having bodyguards all around him.

A source privy to the ongoing investigations told URN that Nambooze was being investigated for inciting violence.

The second file is opened against Nasser Mugerwa, who sent out an audio recording claiming responsibility for Abiriga's assassination. Mugerwa details how they used crime preventers that have been trained by the government to kill Abiriga and that many other supporters of the Ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM) who backed the Age Limit amendment Bill were on the waiting list.

He listed MPs Evelyn Anite, Ruth Nankabirwa, Simeo Nsubuga and Raphael Magyezi as the next possible targets. Mugerwa also threatened President and his Son.

"All of you who touched on the constitution, you will pay. Even you Museveni and your son Muhoozi we are following you step by step," Mugerwa says in the audio which is making rounds on social media.

The third file is against one Jane Kuli, whose Facebook post on May 24, 2018, foretold that Abiriga would die in the first week of June, while the fourth file is against a Ugandan based in Sweden known by the pet name Peng Peng who circulated a video this morning stating that President Museveni and the NRM were behind the murder of Abiriga.

The offending Facebook post has since been found to be fake, having been an edit of an earlier post that was done hours after Abiriga had been killed.

With the exception of Nambooze, the three others are looked at as persons of interest in the murder of Abiriga and his brother Said Butele. The two were gunned down on Friday evening in Kawanda, Wakiso District.

"Someone like Mugerwa, he has gone on record and confessed to being behind the assassination. We have to bring him in and find out what he knows. The rest will be subject to investigations," the officer who preferred anonymity told URN.

The development fits into a pattern of rash action by police in past high profile killings that have seen hundreds if suspects arrested but with a dismal conviction rate.
News, Politics