How a Kenyan rose to top post in Uganda's security

A Kenyan national secured his way to the top of the Uganda police hierarchy landing himself a top position as an aide of the Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura, which could have exposed the country's security interests, Saturday Vision can exclusively reveal.

Embattled Ambrose Murunga, who served as the technical advisor to the Gen. Kayihura and is under investigation after he appeared before the commission of inquiry into land matters led by Lady Justice Catherine Bamugemereire.

The Bamugemereire Commission on Friday detained Murunga at Wandegeya Police station after he was implicated in fraudulent land dealings. The probe found that he was illegally holding more than 400 acres of mailo land in Gayaza Village, Butuntumula Sub-county, in Luwero District, and in contravention of the Constitution and the Land Act.

During the cross examination, the land inquiry found out that Murunga, had issues around his nationality. The commission revealed that Murunga possesses a Kenyan passport and also held two birth certificates of different countries (Uganda and Kenya). The Commission found out that Murunga forged birth certificates and that he had avoided paying taxes to government by under declaring the value of the land and had no valid work permit.

During the hearing, Murunga revealed that his mother was a Ugandan and the father a Kenyan, and that he was born in Mulago hospital in Uganda. That he had also secured a Kenyan birth certificate in order to obtain a Kenyan passport. The Kenyan passport indicates that Murunga was born in Transnzoia County.

At the peak of his career as an aide to Gen. Kayihura, Murunga was perhaps one of the most feared men in security circles, sources stated. Until last week, few in the police force dared to take on the man who had slowly elbowed his way to the top and rose to become an equivalent of the Russian oligarchs. He wielded a lot of power as one of the few Kayihura's blue-eyed boys who made many decisions in the Police force.

Investigations by Saturday Vision can reveal a story of a hustler who suddenly became wealthy and used his position as the police chief's aide to accumulate a fortune. While in that position, he reportedly relegated other police personnel into mere pawns. Sources close to the former aide told Saturday Vision that besides the land and several properties in Kampala, he also owns a 6,000 CC bullet proof BMW car, top silver sports range rovers.

In his heydays at the Police, Murunga had direct access to the IGP and advised on cases to be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Despite the fact that he calls himself a lawyer and that he holds a Master of Law degree from a South African University, records of the Kenya Law Society indicated he was not among its registered lawyers.

Sources in Police told Saturday Vision that Murunga visited Police stations to peruse files or sometimes called for Police records including statements and advised on further investigations and which cases should be dropped.  But some top Police officers were uncomfortable with his presence at the Police Headquarters and role because he was a non-citizen. Most of these officers, Saturday Vision has learnt, have since either abandoned the force or have been deployed out of the country.

According to police sources, by gaining privileged access to the top police boss, Murunga used this opportunity to his advantage and often times made the final call when it came to police reshuffles and demotions.

In 2006, a city lawyer accused Murunga of demanding for money to help close a file in which his client, a Korean national, was being accused of trespassing on land.  Even though a file of forgery involving the Korean couple was forwarded to the DPP and sanctioned, no one dared to touch Murunga. Murunga allegedly ordered the then head of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and now the Deputy IGP, Okoth Ochola, to address a press conference to clear him at the old CID offices along Parliament Avenue.

So powerful was Murunga that he led to the disbandment of the professional Special Branch of the police and would allocate himself almost all the ‘lucrative' police files and those who were opposed to him were hounded out of the force.

How he gained entrance into the force
Even though he stated in the commission that he worked as a Superintendent in the Kenyan police force for 3 years starting from the year 2000 but responding to our inquiry on Wednesday a highly placed police officer who declined to be named but is in the Public relations department indicated they were yet to trace his records.

The Kenyan head of Interpol Julius Maritim told Saturday Vision that he knew Murunga well but was hesitant to discuss details about the embattled man. "I can only discuss him through the official police channels. Ask your Director of Interpol to write to the head of CID Kenya and then we will respond to them," he said.

Murunga also stated that he briefly worked for a private company Corporate Technical Service Limited in Kenya as the Business Development Manager. Further investigations revealed that he also contributed articles to an insert in the Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya called the outlook that used to run on Monday where they referred to him as a security expert.

"He was able make inroads in Uganda when he secured an interview with one of the commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army around February 2007 who revealed to him that the rebel outfit was supported by some elements within the FDC," an editor who declined to be named told Saturday Vision.

Before he filed his story for the Daily Nation, Murunga allegedly met a former security minister who linked him to the former Ministry of Defence Permanent Secretary, the late Brig. Noble Mayombo, to whom he detailed out his findings.  It was then that Murunga was asked to help put together a treason case against opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye who then was the leader of Reform Agenda. Murunga was then seconded to the police force where a special position of technical advisor was created for him.

Murunga's stories were published online under the heading, "Visit to the villages of horror," published on February 6, 2006. "Who is fuelling the conflict in north Uganda?"  published on February 7, 2006. "Shocking ordeal of child soldiers," published on February 7, 2016, all on the Daily Nation Website.

In his initial contract, Saturday Vision has learnt, Murunga initially earned money from the Ministry of Defence but later it was agreed that police starts paying him.

Efforts to get a comment from police and Gen. Kale Kayihura on how Murunga was recruited proved futile Gen. Kayihura's known mobile phone number was not was not being picked.

Police spokesperson Asan Kasingye decline an interview with Saturday Vision on grounds that he only comments on official police matters but promised to following up with the Police Professional Standards Unit on what actions they had taken on police officers who were accused of facilitating the fraud and torture.

However a senior police officer told Saturday Vision that Murunga was introduced to Kayihura through Mayombo. Mayombo met Murunga through Els De Temmerman, who was then running an NGO in Gulu district.

A security source privy to the events told Saturday Vision that Murunga helped in coaching the witnesses, the most prominent being Jennifer Aryemo, who implicated Besigye in the treason case. Court later threw out the case.

A senior Police officer privy to Murunga operations told Saturday Vision that he was actually came into the country shortly before the 2006 elections and was instrumental together with the late Mayombo in the introduction of a real-time navigating tool Google maps in crowd control.

Another measure the embattled former aide introduced was the production of suspects in courts of law at 5 p.m in order to deny them bail. This was a measure police adopted in 2007 shortly after a demonstration against the Government bid to a ward Indian tycoon section of the forest to plant sugarcane.

In 2013, police declined to renew his contract following the growing animosity among the senior officers within the police ranks.

Implicated in land grabbing
Evidence before the Bamugemereire land commission implicated Murunga in torturing, arresting, intimidating and detaining genuine land owners who were peasants and forced them to vacate it in order to satisfy his own selfish interests.

"You actually abused your office, used our police officers to go and terrorise those citizens who had been lawfully, quietly and peacefully living on their land. We would like to know the land officers you were working with and the big people you are working for or helping you to do that," Justice Bamugemereire noted.

The Commission also found out that Murunga fraudulently procured the land after allegedly conniving with the land officials at the Bukalasa land registration office in Luweero District, led by Madina Nabukeera, who is the registrar despite the fact that it had more than 200 families occupying it.

Murunga allegedly claimed he bought the land from one Nalutaaya who secured forged letters of administration. Nalutaaya died under mysterious circumstances between 2015 and last year. Murunga also used his connections within the Police force to deploy officers on his farm in Luwero and those who reported cases against him were instead arrested and arraigned before courts of law.

The commission found out that Murunga worked closely with Raymond Jjagwe who is in-charge of investigation in Luwero to arrest and torture residents.

Bamugemereire noted that people had been in and out of prison because of Murunga and they had suffered at the hands of wrong people in government offices.

One of the witnesses told the commission that Murunga would order the detention and torture of women to compel their husbands to appear before Murunga for action.

Savanna Regional Police Commander, Edward Kyaligonza, told Saturday Vision they had been made aware about the matter but that the Deputy Resident District Commissioner and head of Crime investigations in Luwero personally undertook to handle the files and locked them out. "We were a aware about the matter but we were locked out of the case by those two gentlemen," he said.

Details of what actions will be taken against Murunga were yet to be known. But some of the residents who complained to the commission against Murunga told Saturday Vision they were being harassed.

Sources told Saturday Vision that the police refused to renew Murunga's contract after his involvement in the Equity Bank robbery case when he attempted to interfere with the investigations. In the case, former staff of bank withdrew Sh4.6 billion from a client's accounts but were arrested and detained at the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) Kireka.

Murunga together with the former suspended head of SIU Charles Kataratambi reportedly involved in securing the release of the suspects from police detention and police investigators revealed most of the exhibits recovered went missing.\

Related story 

http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/video/1457550/kenyan-acquired-land-illegally-luweero