Following the arrest of two National Unity Platform (NUP) lawmakers, Mohammed Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana, it emerged that a youthful man had helped the State to purportedly link the two vocal opposition politicians to machete-killings in Masaka.
That man was Tony Ssenyonga. This man, security alleged, had leaked the two opposition MPs as the financers of the killings. Ssenyonga is quoted by the State to have spilled graphic details to investigators, of how the MPs recruited and paid him together with other youths to hack people to death.
According to him, the two MPs would pay as little as 1K for each head that would roll. Curiously, the man is purportedly nowhere to be seen presently. This, following his arrest by the State ahead of using him as a key witness in the murder, attempted murder and terrorism for criminal prosecution of Ssegirinya and Ssewanyana.
The State claims Ssenyonga disappeared from the high security Kitalya prison. But the escape is unprecedented. No one we know of has ever pulled off a prison break while being held at the maximum-security facility.
All the same, State attorney Richard Birivumbuka told a Magistrate’s court in Masaka recently, of how Ssenyonga had gone missing from the prison where he was being held pending the hearing of the criminal cases.
The MPs had been brought before the magistrate, ready to be committed to the High Court for trial when, Birivumbuka surprisingly came up with the controversial story.
But who is Ssenyonga?
Ssenyonga is known to be a government undercover intelligence agent. This stance we hold, much as the State is now disguising him as one of the key suspects who purportedly confessed to the charges of killing people in Masaka using machetes.
This man is understood to have been recruited by former police chief, Gen Edward Kale Kayihura. Following such unconventional recruitment, Ssenyonga was deployed under the dreaded Police’s Flying Squad.
When machete killers first rocked Masaka a decade now, the then Internal Security Organisation (ISO) Director General chieftaincy of military intelligence, Col. Frank Kaka Bagyenda ordered for a swoop during which, his men ended up nabbing Ssenyonga.
Kaka has since revealed how all investigations carried out by ISO at the time ended up pointing at Ssenyonga as the key mastermind of the machete killings. Ssenyonga was arraigned before a magistrate in Masaka and forwarded to the prison pending completion of investigations for the trial to take off.
On subsequent production before the magistrate for the mention of his cases, Kaka shockingly revealed, how heavily armed Flying squad officers raided the court and rescued Ssenyonga from the Prisons Warders.
Ssenyonga had remained missing since that time. But he resurfaced last year. This time round, the State was accusing the young man of being one of the masterminds of the machete killings which rocked Masaka in the aftermath of the February 2021 general elections!
Going back to Kaka, the former intelligence chief stepped out and uttered the shocking revelations after Ssenyonga had been arrested over the second wave of machete killings that are being blamed on MPs Ssewanyana and Ssegirinya.
Apart from the State using Ssenyonga to pin the MPs, Kaka revealed a plot by the State to use the same man to pin him down as one of the masterminds of the said machete killings. Much as the State Attorney told the magistrate that Ssenyonga is missing from prison, insiders assert this is, but a pure ruse.
The prison service spokesperson, Frank Baine has since poured cold water on the prison break in question. Baine asserted that no prisoner can beat the fool-proof security at Kitalya Prison. Insiders, as if on cue, now reveal how Ssenyonga is currently being properly coached as opposed to having escaped from Kitalya prison.
After the purported ongoing coaching session, as per our sources, the State will take him before the High Court to reveal dangerous things he is being coached to state against the MPs.
A former blue-eyed intelligence Chief of the President, Kaka fell from grace to grass following reports that he was clandestinely working for interests of a foreign country`s Head of State.
At the time of the allegations, President Museveni and the said Head of State weren’t at talking terms. The two Heads of State were accusing each other of helping insurgents out to topple the other.
Museveni swiftly removed and replaced Kaka after which, everyone had hoped to see the man being arraigned before a military court, just as Kayihura was, but the commander-in-chief appears to have forgiven and forgotten all about him.
Author Profile
- Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]
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