By Spy Reporter
A Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) soldier was Tuesday morning arrested for allegedly shooting his colleague with whom he had been deployed for duty.
Private Peter Okia was arrested by detectives after reporting a matter at Nateete Police Station that his colleague Leonard Chebet had been killed by an unknown civilian, whom he’d also shot dead.
Police sources revealed to this website that Private Okia reported that an unknown man had attacked his colleague at around 04:36AM on Monday morning, disarmed him and shot him dead from the compound of an installation that they were deployed to guard in Nalukolongo, a Kampala suburb.
However, Deputy Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson Luke Owoyesigyire said that when a team of Homicide and Scene of Crime Officers reconstructed the scene of the shooting in Nalukolongo, they established that the bodies had stayed there for more than a day.
Oweyesigyire said that ;
“It is alleged that two soldiers were deployed to guard a structure in Nalukolongo. This morning 2/9/19 at around 04:36AM, Private Okia reported at Nateete police station that unknown man attacked his colleague, disarmed him and shot him dead from the compound. Okia said he came out of his room and shot the assailant dead.”
Owoyesigyire added that
“However while at the scene we realized that bodies had taken some time and when we re-interrogated Okia he changed his statement and told us that the incident happened on Saturday. The bodies were taken to Mulago city mortuary.”
He said Okia was immediately arrested and detained at Nateete Police Station as investigations into Chebet’s death and that of the civilian continue.
Oweyesigyire revealed that the
police later recovered Chebet’s gun from the scene and several spent cartridges that will be used to establish which of the two guns recovered at the scene was used in the shooting.
However, the police also said the UPDF soldiers were illegally deployed by an unidentified officer at the rank of Major and that investigations into how he got authority to deploy them are also ongoing, since they were not guarding a military installation.
