Former Senior Presidential Press Secretary Tamale Mirundi has lashed out on Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Maj. Gen Paul Lokech for sabotaging Gen Katumba Wamala’s attempted murder case.
During an interview on a local YouTube channel- ‘Inside story’ on Saturday, Mirundi said Gen Lokech should know that suspects confess before court but not at a press conference.
“In a murder case, a suspect confesses before the judge, not at a press conference. We have already seen the same scenario after the murder of Kaweesi, where suspects confessed the same. Katumba’s case is now dead. We don’t go to a press conference to reveal evidence. If these people were aligned before a judge and confessed, they would be at Luzira, so what was Lokech’s goal here?” Mirundi inquired.
The political analyst added that in all murder cases, a person who pulled the gun trigger is the only person who knows why and who sent him but in Gen Katumba’s case security officers killed the master minder of the mission which will affect the depth of further investigations.
“A murder case is judged on two types of evidences; circumstantial and Direct. Therefore, a suspect must be given defence lawyers as well as your evidence. if Lokech had all the evidence, he would have taken it to the magistrate for a confession and they would now in be Luzira on a murder case.”
Mirundi joins a section of other people to question the way the Katumba case is being handed.
Dr. Livingstone Ssewanyana from Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) said that security officers should have maimed the suspects instead of killing them because the killing of unarmed suspects is an extrajudicial killing,
“Security personnel who pulled the trigger should be tried for executing the suspects.”
He urged that they were all still suspects so they had a chance of hearing.
However according to Maj. Gen Lokech’s explanation, although one of the murder suspects was not armed, he tried to fight the officers prompting them to shot him dead while the other was shot dead when he tried to flee from the home of his colleague in Kanyogoga, Bukasa Parish, Makindye Division, in Kampala where two SMGs and a pistol were recovered.
On 1st June 2021, an attempted assassination was carried out on the Minister of Works and Transport Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala where suspects on two motorcycles sprayed his vehicle with bullets in Kisaasi.
The unfortunate incident claimed lives of his daughter, Brenda Nantongo and driver, Haruna Kayondo.
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