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Death of URA staff a murder case, police say
Pallbearers prepare to carry the casket containing the remains of slain URA worker John Bosco Ngorok at Kyambogo Chapel during the requiem mass in Kampala on August 5, 2024. PHOTO/STEPHEN OTAGE
What you need to know:
- The late taxman and the priest were reportedly close friends from childhood, having studied through the seminary, and remaining warm to each other until the last hours of Ngorok on earth.
Police have said they are treating the death of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) employee John Baptist Ngorok as “murder” and that detectives have taken a Catholic priest into custody to help with the investigations.
Ngorok, 30, was a domestic revenue officer with the tax body and was allegedly stabbed multiple times in a Saturday night confrontation with Rev Fr Dominic Alinga.
There have been varying accounts on the likely motive of the tragic incident and how it unfolded on the Entebbe Airport Road section bordering the United Nations Regional Service Centre Entebbe.
Police Spokesman ACP Kituuma Rusoke told Monitor last evening that they are investigating a case of “murder” and that “there had at least been a breakthrough; that the particular person they (investigators) highly suspect was [involved was already] in police custody”.
He declined to discuss whether any witnesses or suspect had recorded a statement with police.
Meanwhile a Toyota Vitz in which both the deceased and the suspect were travelling, remained parked at the Entebbe Divisional Police headquarters.
Suspended priest Rev Fr Dominic Alinga, who was detained over the death of taxman John Bosco Ngorok. PHOTO/COURTESY
Police are also investigating reports that the suspect used the vehicle to hit a commercial motorcycle carrying the taxman for emergency medical care at Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital, moments after an earlier stabbing roughly 100 metres away.
The individual fearing that the victims had died reportedly abandoned the car and fled the scene on foot.
Good Samaritans rushed Ngorok and the 27-year-old boda boda named Richard Abigaba Richard to Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital, about 1.5 kilometres from the scene. Relatives and witnesses said Ngorok on his way to hospital telephoned to break the news that he had been stabbed and feared he would die, asking family members to “come and take his body” home.
He reportedly named Rev Fr Alinga as having stabbed him, although we could not independently corroborate this account rendered to us by Ms Olive Pulkol, a cousin to the deceased and friend to the implicated Catholic priest.
The late taxman and the priest were reportedly close friends from childhood, having studied through the seminary, and remaining warm to each other until the last hours of Ngorok on earth.
When this reporter visited the hospital in Entebbe, health workers said the deceased was delivered to the facility shortly after midnight on Saturday night in critical condition, having bled profusely. The on-duty doctors and nurses said they tried to resuscitate Ngorok, but he breathed his last shortly before 2am.
His rider Abigaba, a resident of Katabi Town Council in Wakiso District, sustained minor injuries and was discharged after treatment.
Boda bodas at Rosemary Courts Bugonga, located roughly 20 metres from the spot of the reported stabbing, said the initial information relayed to them at daybreak on Sunday was that one of their colleagues was knocked in the night and a passenger he was carrying had died at hospital of stab wounds.
“They told us a Boda Boda operator found the victim had got a problem and tried to drive him to Entebbe Referral Hospital, but this other gentleman drove and knocked them at the UN watchtower exactly after the fence of the Uganda People Defence Air Force fence,” one commercial motorcycle rider said, asking not be named to avoid police calling them to record statement on the incident.
The rider added: “There are even skid marks that show where the motorcycle that was knocked rolled. Ater knocking the duo, the car remained there and the person [driving it] ran away on foot, then police came and towed the car away.”
In an audio shared on social media and in which Rev Fr Alinga reportedly spoke on the incident, the priest denied any wrongdoing, saying the late had first tried to stab him but he managed to fight off and flee from the vehicle he was driving.
We could not independently verify authenticity of the audio and if the voice belonged to Ngorok who is inaccessible after police arrested him. In the audio, the narrator said the URA staffer stabbed himself, an account contradicting earlier narrative to police.
