KAMPALA – The High Court, on Monday, July 15, convicted two men for murdering Andrew Gatare, a mechanical engineering student of the University of British Columbia in Canada.
Trial judge Flavia Anglin Senoga said prosecution had proved that Ronald Mutebi and Geoffrey Lubwama, alias Jeff, were behind the death of Gatare in Kampala on New Year eve of 2015.
“It is evident that the two accused persons set out to go and rob revellers on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, it was the deceased (Gatare) who fell to their evil plan. They attacked him and caused him fatal injuries. A telephone and unspecified sum of money were taken away from him. None of them dissociated themselves from the attack of the deceased” ruled Justice Senoga.
Court also revealed how the two men were arrested. At trial, the prosecution stated that on the New Year eve of 2015, Gatare left their home in Kololo to watch fireworks at Kampala Serena Hotel. After the fireworks at around 2 am, he left the hotel and crossed to Nile Avenue towards Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) to catch a boda back home.
While he walked along Nile Avenue, the convicts pounced and assaulted him before robbing him of his BlackBerry mobile phone and wallet with unspecified money in it. He was left unconscious on pavement and bleeding from nose and mouth.
He was later picked up by police guarding UBC offices who dropped him at the Casualty Ward in Mulago Hospital where he died moments later.
Police investigations revealed that the injuries were consistent with the application of physical force by a deadly weapon; a hammer. The cause of death was confirmed as blunt head trauma.
The indictment showed that the police tracked the killers through Gatare’s telephone number which was robbed after the murder and was later found with one Damulira Ssezzi.
“On January 13, 2015, through a sting operation, police made arrest of Damulira who revealed that the said phone had been sold to him by accused number one (Mutebi) who was a resident of Kazo in Central Division in Kawempe at Shs60,000 of which he had made a down payment of Shs40,000,” the prosecution indictment read in part.
Police investigators conducted another operation that saw Mutebi arrested and upon interrogation, he confessed robbing the said phone from the deceased outside Serena Hotel shortly after the 2015 New Year celebrations.
Damulira told police how he shared the money with Lubwama whom the police also arrested.
