Police cordone off the scene of Joan Kagezi’s shooting: NET PHOTO
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mike Chibita has said they have failed to find the killers of Senior Principal State Attorney Joan Kagezi because of police’s poor criminal investigation skills.
Kagezi, who was leading the State’s case in the high profile trial of suspects in the 2010 terror bombings which claimed 76 lives in Kampala, and the recent murders in Busoga sub-region, was gunned down in Kiwatule, a Kampala suburb, in 2015.
Speaking at the Uganda Media Centre on Thursday, Mr Chibita said police investigators lacked the required forensic knowledge to analyse existing evidence that would have helped to track down the killers.
“Three years down the road, I have no positive news in identifying and prosecuting the killers of our colleague Joan. As I had mentioned, this is one of the disappoints for a prosecutor that one of our own was gunned down in the line of duty and three years we don’t have anyone prosecuted for this offence,” Mr Chibita said ahead of the third Joan Kagezi Annual memorial lecture at Hotel Africana on Friday.
“If we had forensic resources and well trained investigators, I think we should be able to crack it by now,” he added.
The DPP said crime trends in the country have evolved to organized, sophisticated syndicates, which the police must be trained to handle.
Reports placed senior police officers at the scene of Joan Kagezi’s death
“What is needed to detect and crack an investigation is the human resource. In other words, people who had phones around the scene were arrested but how to go an extra mile and say who was talking to who, and doing the analysis and being able to extract that kind of knowledge and capacity was not available to investigators,” he added.
He explained that there was no substantial evidence directly linking all the 50 suspects arrested to the murder of Kagezi and that it is high time police stepped up their investigation skills.
“It seems the people who did this were well organized, they were not your ordinary criminals. They were able plan it and also plan they escape and ensure their tracks were covered,” he said.
The DPP said the memorial lecture will run under the theme: “Combating International and transnational organised crime: Lessons learnt and best practices.”
The lecture will be delivered by Ms Grace Ononiwu, UK’s Chief Crown Prosecutor.
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