CRIME & MURDER: President Museveni yesterday reportedly telephoned the widow of renowned boxer Isaac Zebra Ssenyange who was shot dead early yesterday in Bwaise, a Kampala suburb.
In the telephone conversation that is said to have lasted for about 15 minutes, the President condoled with the family and undertook to dispatch a team to investigate the killing of Ssenyage, 40.
“Yes, President promised to [help with the investigations] … but I have been told to stop discussing that,” Ms Mercy Mukankusi, the widow, said yesterday.
According to the family and witnesses, masked gunmen struck the family home in St Francis Zone in Bwaise in the dead of the night, and banged the door and window, calling out Ssenyange by his nickname Zebra.
Sensing danger, the boxer fled through the back door and sprinted over a filthy drainage canal into what turned out to be a dead end.
He then made a U-turn and was gunned by other waiting assailants as the original pursuers stormed into his house after kicking the door open.
Witnesses, among them the village chairperson, Mr Abdullatif Ssekirime, said the deceased was first disabled by a bullet that shattered his leg.
“As he pleaded ‘spare me, I’m still an (ruling) NRM (party) supporter’, they finished him with bullets that crushed his jaw,” Mr Ssekirima said.
Ssenyange’s body was found soaked in blood, with the brain matter splattered on the ground, about 100 metres away from his home.
Detectives yesterday swarmed the place to interview witnesses and reconstruct the scene of crime.
Police, however, did not tape off the scene of crime and unrestrained access by curious onlookers meant vital investigative clues and evidence could have been tampered with.
Ms Maureen Mulangira, a boxing administrator, who was knowledgeable about the President’s telephone call, last evening said Mr Museveni picked interest in the matter because the deceased was an influential supporter of the NRM party, particularly in the ghetto communities in the city’s Kawempe Division.
“Zebra was an NRM supporter and a peace lover,” Ms Mulangira said.
Kampala Metropolitan Deputy police spokesperson Luke Owoyesigire noted in a statement issued yesterday morning that the area police were treating Ssenyange’s killing as a “murder” case.
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