The trial of six men accused of the attempted assassination of Transport minister Gen Katumba Wamala and the murder of his daughter, Brenda Nantongo, resumed this week with harrowing testimony from three survivors of the 2019 Cheap Hardware robbery in Nansana.
The witnesses, whose identities the court ordered concealed for security reasons, appeared before a panel of International Crimes Division (ICD) judges: Richard Wabwire, Dr Winifred Nabisinde, Susan Okalany, and Vincent Wagona.
Their accounts form part of a wider case file, merging a string of aggravated robberies and ten murders that prosecutors attribute to the accused. The first witness, a 36-year-old former storekeeper, told the court that at around 2 pm on May 29, 2019, he stepped out of the store moments before gunfire erupted.
He saw the security guard sprint past and tried to flee through a corridor. A bullet struck him from behind, ripping through his left shoulder and shattering his thumb.
“I never saw who shot me. I was running under confusion,” he said. Bystanders lifted him onto a motorcycle and rushed him to Sebbi hospital before he was transferred to Nakasero hospital. He spent two days there “barely conscious”.
A 31-year-old security worker assigned to deliver meals to guards across Kampala, Nakasero, and Nansana testified next. He said he arrived at Cheap Hardware at about 11 am and had just arranged the food containers when shots rang out.
“At first I thought it was our own guards,” he said.
When he turned, he saw two masked men. A bullet slammed into his arm, knocking him down. Terrified, he crawled under a truck as bullets ricocheted around him. One round struck the truck and rebounded into his thigh. He said the shooting lasted nearly ten minutes.
The attackers fled on a motorcycle with no number plate. Police arrived shortly after, removed a body, and rushed him to Mulago hospital. He was discharged the same day but took more than a month and a half to heal.
The most graphic testimony came from a 56-year-old real estate dealer and long-time customer of Cheap Hardware. He said he had gone to buy ten bags of cement after receiving payment from a client.
He walked into the hardware shop holding Shs 400,000 in cash. As he counted the money, he heard what he thought was a tyre burst – then more explosions. Realising it was gunfire, he fell to the floor, landing on top of the cashier.
He testified that he heard one attacker barking orders, demanding safe keys from the manager. The manager replied that the keys were with the senior manager. Gunshots followed. Then came a sudden burning sensation.
“I felt pain in my private parts,” he said. A bullet had torn through him. He recalled hearing one gunman shouting in Luganda: “Obwedda mbagamba muvewano nga temuwulila”, loosely, “I have been telling you to leave this place but you don’t listen.”
He crawled behind paint boxes with the cashier. When the gunfire stopped, he stood up feeling dizzy. His phone and keys were still on the counter, but the money was gone. Outside, he saw the manager lying on the ground but could not tell whether he was alive.
Someone bundled him and three other injured victims into a vehicle. They were taken to Sebbi hospital, then transferred to Nakasero hospital. There, doctors discovered the full extent of his injuries: the bullet entered through his right thigh or hip and exited through his penis, shattering part of it.
He said he arrived wearing a red T-shirt soaked in blood, though at first he mistook the blood for the colour of the cloth. He said medical staff asked him questions in several languages, but he barely spoke, “I only managed to tell them I had left my children behind.”
He was hospitalised for three days, used crutches for two weeks, and recovered fully after three months. He described drifting in and out of consciousness, “like a blind man lying on his stomach.”
The six accused men, Muhammad Kagugube, Sirmani Kisambira, Abdullah Aziz Ramadhan (Dunka), Kamada Walusimbi, Habib Ramadhan Marjan, and Huzaifah Wampa were committed to trial in January 2022 on 30 charges before the ICD.
They face allegations including terrorism, ten counts of murder, 12 counts of attempted murder, aggravated robbery, financing terrorism, rendering support to the ADF, and belonging to a terrorist organisation.
They were initially charged over the June 1, 2021, assassination attempt on Gen Katumba in Kisaasi, which killed his daughter Brenda Nantongo and his driver, Sgt Haruna Kayondo. Later that year, then DPP Jane Frances Abodo added 18 more charges linking them to earlier killings and robberies.
These include the Cheap Hardware murders of Jimmy Atukuru, Frank Anania, Abaho Frank Mutsinda, and Amim Bugembe, during which assailants stole Shs 385 million from cashier Tedrin Nalule.
Other charges relate to the killing of Burton Okoti at City Shoppers Supermarket in 2019, and a 2017 robbery at Denovo Bakery, where five people, including two SPCs, were shot dead.
Prosecution evidence shows that police recovered a cache of items from the suspects’ homes: two AK-47 rifles, a pistol, live ammunition, motorcycles, hoods, helmets, ropes, knives, toy pistols, SIM cards, CDs with Arabic audio, and printed materials.
The DPP told court that the analysis indicated some were intelligence manuals or guides for manufacturing improvised explosives. Forensic tests further linked the recovered firearms to several high-profile killings, including the 2016 assassination of Maj Muhammad Kiggundu and the 2017 murder of AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi, whose bodyguard’s pistol was also recovered. The trial continues.
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