Uganda police, in coordination with their Kenyan counterparts, have successfully apprehended a fugitive who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend in Uganda.
This escapee had managed to evade capture for over 15 months but was eventually arrested at a local hotel in Nairobi on Tuesday evening.
His plans to leave the country were foiled due to a flight delay, which led him to temporarily check into the hotel.
Reports from Uganda’s media outlets indicate that the man had taken various measures to alter his identity, including changing his name and making modifications to certain facial and physical attributes in an attempt to evade law enforcement.
However, his presence at the hotel was captured by CCTV cameras, enabling officers to positively identify him as the wanted individual.
According to Kakensa Media, “The CCTV footage at the airport identified him after he was flagged as a wanted criminal on the Interpol database.”
In May 2022, he was convicted in absentia for the 2015 murder of his girlfriend, a 19-year-old medical student at Makerere University, whose body was discovered in a sugar plantation in Lugazi.
Following the denial of his bail request in November 2021, he disappeared from the authorities’ radar.
Ugandan law enforcement sought the assistance of international security agencies, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to track him down.
The suspect, who happens to be a doctor, will be extradited to Uganda to serve his sentence.
Ugandan police spokesperson Fred Enanga stated, “Arrangements are in place to hand him over to Interpol Uganda, who will thereafter transfer him to the Mukono High Court in collaboration with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID), and Kampala Metropolitan police.”
Meanwhile, reports suggest that in 2015, the convict confessed to the murder of his girlfriend and led detectives to the scene of the crime.
He admitted to strangling the victim before slitting her throat with a surgical blade.
His case has been ongoing since 2015 and was transferred from Jinja Magistrates Court to the Mukono High Court.
The convict employed various tactics to avoid appearing before the court, including feigning illness.
