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Govt spy shot in brawl at rights defender’s home
Mr Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson. PHOTO | BENSON TUMUSIIME
What you need to know:
- The 2am incident has left the ISO operative fighting for his life in hospital and the ex-Uganda Human Rights Commission member caged by police over attempted murder charge.
A male government spy who reportedly left his home at night for a security operation, has been shot at the home of a former female commissioner of Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), the statutory rights body.
Andrew Kiiza Olweddo, an Internal Security Officer (ISO) operative, was by last night fighting for his life at a top medical facility in Kampala where relatives, health workers and police said he was admitted to in critical condition.
We were unable to establish the relationship between the spy and the ex-commissioner, who has been taken into custody at Kajjansi Police Station where detectiveshave preferred a charge of attempted murder against her. The spark of the fight is now a matter of investigation.
In accounts offered by Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesman Patrick Onyango, a fight erupted between the pair and the woman, whom we are not naming for legal reasons, fled and locked herself up in her bedroom upstairs.
The ISO operative reportedly began smashing the door glasses to gain entry, prompting the former commissioner’s guard, a Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldier attached to Bombo barracks, to intervene.
Police said the guard evacuated his principal from the bedroom to the ground floorwhere the spy pursued them, leading to another round of brawl with the ex-commissioner at around 2am.
It is at this point that Onyango, a senior superintendent of police, said the guard, who was holding his AK-47 rifle and a pistol assigned to her principal acted.
“The guard used the pistol owned by his principal to shoot the ISO operative in the abdomen,” SSP Onyango said yesterday.
The suspected shooter is on the run, but detectives have retrieved the gun believed was used in the shooting at the ex-commissioner’s residence in Mawanyi, Bwebajja Ward of Kajjansi Town Council in Wakiso District.
Contradicting statements
The police version, however, contradicted what sources had told this publication regarding the shooting incident.
Sources had indicated that the said ex-commissioner’s bodyguard was out of Kampala City. It’s not clear how the bodyguard who was away could have accessed the bedroom and shot Olweddo. Sources have indicated that the bodyguard recorded a statement and denied shooting the government spy. Investigators from Kajjansi Police Station fanned out to the crime scene following a distress call from the former URHC commissioner, but arrived to find a spy bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds.
The guard had already sprinted away, leaving the woman to drive the injured man for treatment to first a nearby clinic and later to a bigger hospital in Kampala before relocation to a third one.
Witnesses said the former rights commissioner clashed at one of the hospitals with a woman who identified herself as the spy’s official wife. Following the brawl, the latter reportedly telephoned Mr Tom Mugambo, the police director for Criminal Investigations, and he dispatched detectives who arrested the ex-commissioner.
She was detained at Kampala Central Police Station before being shifted to Kajjansi Police Station where investigators have preferred against her a charge of attempted murder. Police said they recovered a pistol with 11 rounds of ammunition, one AK-47 rifle, one army bag, UPDF uniforms, one cartridge, three magazines with 90 rounds in army green UPDF pouches, and emptied beer bottles.
