GULU – Police in Gulu have charged a lawyer with murder after he knocked dead a medical doctor in an accident.
Victor Komakech, 38, was arrested on March 8 after he knocked dead Dr Charles Omona Otto, a retired pathologist.
Komakech has been held at Gulu Central Police Station for close to a month as police investigated his case.
Dr Omona met his death while at his clinic in Layibi, an outskirt of Gulu town along Gulu- Kampala Highway on March 8, at around 8:30 pm.
Omona was buried on Saturday at their ancestral home in Pakwelo, Unyama Sub County in Gulu district.
On a fateful day, Komakech who was driving Mark II Toyota registration number UAR 345Q also knocked and killed another person identified as Michael Onencan, a resident of Wol Sub County in Agago district.
Jimmy Patrick Okema, the Aswa River Region Police spokesperson, said the lawyer has been charged with two counts of causing death through reckless driving. He said the suspect will be produced in court once his case file is ready.
More than 3,000 people were killed and another 10,000 picked injuries of varying degrees in 13,244 road accidents in 2017, according to the annual Traffic and Road Safety report released yesterday.
Nearly half of the dead were pedestrians and 918 were motorcyclists, meaning less than 1,000 died in car crashes.
Mr Steven Kasiima, the director of Traffic Police, attributed the accidents mainly to reckless and careless driving, which jointly accounted for 72 per cent of the fatal accidents.
Mr Kasiima said other causes include; careless pedestrians, speeding, dangerous loading and or overloading, vehicles in dangerous mechanical conditions, drunk drivers, passengers falling off vehicles and obstacles on the road. Police also announced that it collected Shs17.7b in express penalty scheme from 197,529 errant drivers countrywide.
More than 4,000 drivers were found without valid driving permits, something the IGP said explained the high number of accidents caused by largely untrained drivers.
