Bombo killer soldier sought 'revenge'

By Steven Candia and Simon Masaba

BOMBO - The soldier who allegedly shot dead 10 people in Bombo at the weekend could have acted out of deep-seated anger that drove him to revenge against a couple that was at the bar, it has emerged.

The Police said preliminary investigations indicate that the soldier, Pt. Patrick Okot, could have been bitter with Sgt. Onesmus Adule and his wife, Florence Adule, after the couple reported a case against him to Police two days prior to the incident.

The Police said on the night of March 7, the Adules reported a case of criminal trespass and assault against Okot after the soldier allegedly assaulted their 14-year-old daughter. The girl had allegedly resisted his sexual advances.

The previous night, the Police said, the Adules were having a drink with six other people at the local joint when somebody tipped them that they had a problem at home in the barracks.

As they rushed home, they met someone fleeing and their daughter screaming. She narrated that she had been assaulted by Okot who demanded for sex and had fled when she raised an alarm.

“They came and reported a case here,” Richard Emuna, the Bombo Police Station boss, said.

The Police suspect that when the couple returned to the Police station to finalise formalities of having their daughter examined by the Police surgeon on March 8, information could have leaked to the soldier that the couple had reported a case against him, hence the anger.

Matters, the Police, said, were not helped when the soldier, in the company of another colleague, turned up at about 9:00pm to have a drink at the same bar where the Adules were, only to be sent away by the owner on account of the events of the previous night.

“She told them that they couldn’t drink in the same bar with the Adules and asked them to go and drink somewhere else,” Emuna said. It is this, together with reporting of the case, that the Police suspect could have angered Okot.

At 12:12am local time, Okot struck, shooting indiscriminately, killing his victims in a hail of fire.

The bodies of victims have been returned to Bombo military barracks after postmortem examinations ahead of being claimed by their relatives today for burial.

Security sources yesterday said the army and the Police were carrying out a joint massive manhunt for the soldier.

Security teams on Saturday recovered an army uniform and a pair of boots suspected to have been abandoned by the soldier in Nyimbwa sub-county, Luwero district.

By Sunday, both the soldier and the killer firearm had not been traced.