KAMPALA – A top city lawyer and four others accused of torturing a farm employee to death have been slapped with murder charges by police.
Mr Richard Kiboneka of Nyanzi, Kiboneka and Mbabazi Company Advocates on Sunday allegedly hired four muscular men commonly known as bouncers to torture James Kalemera, an employee on his farm located in Kayonza village, Butuntumula Sub-county in Luweero District for allegedly stealing cows. Kalemera died shortly after allegedly being hit with clubs and other crude weapons by the bouncers.
Savana Region Police spokesperson Paul Kangave on Tuesday said following a visit to the scene of crime by police detectives on Monday, they concluded that Kalemera was beaten to death.
“The charges preferred are of murder because ingredients, including the ferrying of persons who tortured Kalemera, the use of clubs and molten plastics to try and get information. Some of the exhibits were recovered at the scene where the torture incident happened. Police is finalizing with the case file,” Kangave said, adding that a further post-mortem was done on the deceased’s body in Kampala City mortuary on Monday evening.
On Monday, Kalemera’s widow, Ms Helen Kaitesi, claimed that Mr Kiboneka hired five bouncers who tied her husband with ropes and tortured him for nearly four hours on Sunday afternoon as they told him to confess about the whereabouts of seven cows that disappeared from the farm in September.
“I pleaded with Kiboneka who is our boss at the farm to take my husband to police after as the men who were 4 in number beat and burnt with plastic my husband. Kiboneka and his group boarded their car and left the farm when my husband became unconscious at around 5:00 pm on Sunday. He later collapsed and breathed his last after asking me for a cup of water,” Ms Kaitesi said.
She claims that Kalemera became unconscious and his tormentors put him on a wheelbarrow and transferred him to his house where he breathed his last. The lawyer is also accused of denying the deceased his salary from the month of September over the cattle theft.
Mr Kangave said one suspect has been arrested over the matter.
We could not immediately contact Mr Kiboneka after someone received his phone and told us that the lawyer is sick and unable to comment.
Mr Salim Zimula, the Butuntumula Sub-county councillor, confirmed that a casual labourer had been beaten to death by a group of men at the farm.
“We demand for justice as we organize for the burial of our resident. We are scared that the act was committed in broad daylight by people we expect to be custodians of the law,” Zim
