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Betrayal of trust: Regular boda boda client robs, kills cyclist
Ibrahim Nabongho and his brother Juma hire Joseph Byebye to take them to Upland Stage in Mbale Municipality, then to Irimbi village in Namutumba District. ILLUSTRATIONS BY Alex KwizEra
What you need to know:
Murdered. Their father was a prominent farmer. He worked hard, always left his comfort zone in Namutumba to go and sell his harvest in Mbale. Ibrahim Nabongho and Juma should have emulated their father and earned their desires through hard work. But no, the duo decided to rob Joseph Byebye, a boda boda cyclist, of his life, and priced possession.
On June 25, 2010, police officers received a call from Josephine Kanyago that a body had been abandoned in a rice garden in Kalamira village, Busembatia District on Tirinyi Road.
The first officers at the scene found the body covered with a grey blanket. When they uncovered it, they realised it was the body of a male adult. It had several deep wounds on the head.
Scene of Crime officer, D/CPL Mohammed Mugoya, looked around the scene but there was no sign of scuffle and blood had caked on the body and not the ground. This gave him an impression that the deceased could have been carried from another area to the scene.
He took his photographs and drew a stretch of the scene like he had always done. The residents police spoke to seemed not to have known the deceased.
Police officers now went back to their records to see if there was anyone who had reported a case of a missing person in the area and indeed, someone had - at Mbale Police Station.
James Jabi had reported his brother-in-law, Joseph Byebye, a boda boda motorcyclist, as missing on the night of June 24, 2010.
Jabi claimed Byebye’s wife, who was his sister, had told him Byebye never returned home and didn’t inform her of his itinerary.
Police allowed Jabi to have a look at the body they had recovered in the rice garden. Jabi couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Before him was Byebye’s body.
Police officers had now skipped the first hurdle of identifying the deceased but still did not know how the deceased had met his fate. Byebye’s wife told detectives her husband left in the morning of June 24, 2010 to embark on his daily routine that involved ferrying people on his motorcycle. The motorcycle was missing. Detectives now had to investigate a murder case and an aggravated robbery.
Finding the suspects
Detectives went to Upland Stage in Mbale Municipality, Byebye’s workstation, to find out if anyone had seen him before he was reported missing.
Byebye’s colleagues did not know any of the clients he had ridden on his boda boda that day.
By this time, the sad news of his demise had spread to Mbale and Namutumba districts.
Many residents shared accounts of where they had last seen byebye. Some claimed to have seen a man fitting Byebye’s description carrying a son of their prominent resident, Sinani Kasambeku, alias, Mugenda Mbale, in the evening. His regular business visits to Mbale earned him the nickname.
Others claimed they had seen sons of Kasambeku riding a red Bajaj motorcycle around Irimbi village, Magada Sub-county in Namutumba District. The suspicion grew into conspiracy involving several names.
The residents could not bear the thought of living with murderers. They stormed Kasambeku’s home baying for his and his son’s blood.
Police were called in. To save their lives and their property, officers put the Kasambeku family in custody as the mob were calmed down.
While in custody, Kasambeku denied being involved in the robbery of any motorcycle or killing anyone.
On June 25, 2015, Kasambeku told detectives he never saw his son, Ibrahim Nabongho riding a motorcycle.
Nevertheless, police sent detective Jabi Serulo with scene of crime officers to Kasambeku to verify the residents’ claims.
“Our scene of crime officers recovered a piece of grey blanket that appeared similar to the one found covered on the body of Byebye at Kalamira. It was exhibited,” Serulo later recorded in his statement.
In Kasambeku’s homestead lived two of his sons Fazil and Juma, who were not at home when the mob attacked.
Serulo’s team examined the houses of Kasambeku’s sons.
“At the kitchen of Fazil, we found blood stains on the wood door and metallic sheets. We cut pieces, which we kept as exhibits,” Serulo says.
The team moved around the Kasambeku’s premises to search for evidence of the killing. They found a machete in a potato garden.
They also found a pair of blood-stained trousers. It was also added to the list of exhibits.
The team couldn’t tell whether what they found linked the family to the death of Byebye. Serulo told the residents they needed to talk to the Kasambeku’s sons to help them with investigations.
Residents were collaborative. They passed on the information to their neighbours.
Information leaked that Kasambeku’s sons were hiding in Irondo, a neighbouring village in the same sub-county. They had kept the motorcycle at the home of their brother-in-law Yusuf Mukose.
Residents rushed to the village. They held Kasambeku’s son Nabongho, whom they beat up until police came to his rescue. At the police station, Nabongho denied the accusations against him.
Mukose was also arrested. He was stunned when detectives told him details of the case they were investigating. He didn’t want to be associated with the crime. He pledged to cooperate.
Giving in the suspects
Mukose told detectives that on June 30, 2010, Nabongho and his brother Juma came to his home with a motorcycle claiming they had run out of fuel.
“They left the motorcycle at my home for some time. They later came with another man, who seemed to be a mechanic, and repaired the motorcycle. It was refuelled. They all used the same motorcycle and left,” Mukose told detectives.
Nabongho’s father finally confirmed he had seen his son with a motorcycle. Nabongho had now been exposed. He could not hide any more. He told detectives he had hired Byebye to take him to Upland Stage in Mbale Municipality, then to Irimbi village in Namutumba District at Shs20,000 at around 4.30pm on June 25, 2010. In addition to the transport fare, Nabongho also promised to foot the cost of fuel for the ride.
“I went with Byebye to my father’s home where we were to spend the night. At Irimbi, my brothers Juma and Fazil demanded they take the motorcycle away from the rider. I refused but they insisted,” Nabongho said.
However, they all agreed to rob Byebye of his motorcycle.
Byebye spent the night in Fazil’s kitchen from where Nabongho called him late in the night.
“When Byebye opened the door, I hit him on the head. Juma and Fazil joined in and finished him off,” he told police.
The trio took Nabongho’s body to a potato garden where they stopped to rest, before riding miles away to dump it in a rice garden.
The after plot
That night, Nabongho and his brother Juma then planned to hide the motorcycle in Irombo. However, on their way to Irombo, the motorcycle developed a mechanical problem and they had to seek help from a mechanic.
Results from the government analyst confirmed the bloodstains found in Fazil’s kitchen match the body found in a rice garden.
By then, Fazil and Juma had evaded both the police and public hunt.
Detectives wound up their file and submitted it to the director of public prosecution.
The DPP sanctioned charges of aggravated robbery and murder against Nabongho and his father, Kasambeku. Both were taken to court and sent on remand. Later, the trial commenced in Iganga High Court and the prosecutions lined up nine witnesses.
After three-and-half years of trial before Judge Flavia Senoga Anglin, Nabongho retracted his confession, saying police officers tortured, and forced him to confess.
He said between June 24, 2010 and June 26, 2010, when the chain of events that led to the death incident happened in Namutumba, he was at his home at Kakajjo Zone, Bweyogerere in Wakiso District.
He said he wasn’t even arrested at Irombo as the police officers stated, but at Isoola, Namutumba District, where he had gone to buy water melon and tomatoes.
The ruling
Judge Senoga ruled that the court found no evidence that Nabongho was tortured and forced to confess. She also said prosecution had proved he was at the scene of crime when the incident happened.
“I find that the accused’s alibi and general defence were disproved as lies. [Nabongho] was placed at the scene of the crime and the evidence of the prosecution shows that he participated of his own free will in the murder of the deceased,” Judge Senoga said.
Judge Senoga ruled that Nabongho “is hereby found guilty on both counts. Count 1 aggravated robbery contrary to Section 285 and 286 (2) of the Penal Code Act and he is convicted of the same. He is also found guilty of murder contrary to Section 188 and 189 of the Penal Code Act and is convicted of the same. While Kasambeku is acquitted on both counts and should be set free forthwith unless otherwise held on other legal charges.”
The sentence
The convict (Nabongho) is sentenced to imprisonment for life on Count 1 (aggravated robbery) and imprisonment for life on Count 2 (murder). Sentences to run concurrently.
Reason: The degree of injury occasioned to the victim was fatal. He was repeatedly struck on the head with a weapon until he died.
There was meticulous premeditation and planning of both offences by the convict and his brothers still at large.
The convict went to Mbale, lured a motorcyclist-the deceased to bring him home.
At home, he persuaded the deceased to spend the night with him in the kitchen of his brother Fazil. Though the weapon was never recovered, it was a deadly weapon capable of causing death and indeed it caused death.
The convict and his brothers deliberately caused loss of life in the course of commission of the offence of robbery, just to take a motorcycle from the deceased.
The convict and his brothers deliberately targeted and caused the death of a defenceless person, who trusted them to be safe, when he agreed to spend the night at their home.
The convict, though part of a group, played a major role in luring the victim, persuaded him to spend the night, agreeing to open the door of the kitchen for his brothers and being the one to first hit the deceased on the head and the others to finish the gruesome job.
Flavia Senoga Anglin, Judge
