Ggaba murders trial: 'He charged at me with a knife but I ducked for cover'

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 GGABA MURDER TRIAL 

By Joseph Kizza
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It all happened so fast. One minute Annet Odong was settling back into her computer work, the next she was out of her office desperately trying to stop a male stranger from harming the little children under her care.

On Wednesday, the 57-year-old had to turn back the hands of time to recount the tragic events of a dark April 2 of this year that resulted in the brutal murder of four children at Ggaba Early Childhood Development Programme Centre (Makindye division) in Uganda's capital Kampala, where she works as the coordinator.

Called in as one of several prosecution witnesses in the trial of Christopher Okello Onyum, who is accused of murder, Odong (pictured below) told the mobile High Court on the second day of the hearing of how she had raised desperate alarms as the unassuming man she had just interacted with in her office not long before had dramatically transformed into a knife-wielding attacker baying for blood.

She told of how she had helplessly witnessed the armed man savagely take the lives of four toddlers in broad daylight.

On the opening day of the trial on Monday, Odong's colleague, caregiver Phoebe Namutebi, had narrated her personal account of what happened, including her first encounter with the accused and when she introduced him to the coordinator the following day.

And when it was her turn to testify in court, Odong spoke of an encounter that turned from casual and ordinary to horrific and traumatic in only a matter of minutes.

With a short-hair look, she stood only a couple of metres away from where the accused, Okello, sat heavily guarded by Uganda Prisons Service personnel.

After the opening formalities, Odong was then asked the same question posed to the previous prosecution witnesses: "Do you know the accused?" 

"Yes, I do," she responded, before going on to share her personal experience of that dark April 2.

The encounter

It was within the morning hour of 11 when caregiver Namutebi walked into Odong's office with a male visitor, introduced the two and then told the coordinator that they had met and interacted the previous day.

"I interviewed him. I asked him for the age and sex of the child. He said she was a girl and was about to make three years," Odong told court.

She recommended nursery school because of the age factor. But just like he had told Namutebi the day before, he requested that the child is allowed one term in the day care to improve her social skills and speech.

"I accepted his request and told him what was required to enroll the child in day care," she told court.

The man was required to pay sh10,000 for registration, sh120,000 as day care fees and sh60,000 for the uniform. He mentally worked out the total of sh190,000, which the coordinator confirmed with a calculator. He had not come along with cash, so she gave him her mobile money account on which to deposit the money. He duly sent sh195,000 (including sh5,000 for withdrawal fees).

"After seeing the [transaction] message, I instructed Phoebe to write for him a receipt. She wrote the receipt and gave it to him."

Typically, Odong told court, they issue clients original handwritten receipts and they retain the duplicates. All receipts are headed with the name of the institution: Ggaba Early Childhood Development Programme Centre.

'He was a sponsor'

Now that the registration was done, the institution needed the details of the child to enter in their records.

"He told me that he was just a sponsor of the child, but that the mother would come with her own details and those of the child the following Tuesday," testified Odong.

Right then. After exchanging goodbyes, the man exited the office and the coordinator turned back to her computer to carry on with "typing some work". She said Namutebi placed the receipt book back in the drawer, before leaving the office to see off the visitor at the gate.

We learn that at the time that day, there were 44 children present: 28 under the vulnerable category and 16 under the day care group. Altogether, the facility had 48 children.

Meanwhile, just as she had resumed her other work, Odong looked through the office window and what she saw triggered her onto her feet. Out in the compound, the man who had just been in her office was crouched over a child. Naturally, she believed he was beating the toddler.

But why would he do that?

'He charged at her'

The coordinator said she raced out of her office to the scene to confront the man as she raised her voice. But the situation was more serious than she had thought.

The man, wide-eyed, let go of the hapless child, brandished a bloodied knife and charged at the coordinator. Fearing for her life, she said she rushed into a corner of a nearby structure.

"That's when Phoebe picked up a bicycle to hit him. He then started running after her, during which she fell down. When she fell down, he rushed back to where the children were," narrated Odong.

"Phoebe picked another bicycle and threw it at him. He charged at her again, also intending to attack her."

All the while, the distressed coordinator was crying out for help, her alarm soon drawing another colleague, Norah, who arrived to join in amplifying the alert — until rescuers came.

"The first to arrive was Cyrus Bukenya, and then the security guard Moses Opio, and then Bashir Matovu," Odong testified. The trio immediately subdued the attacker.

Desperate and unaware of the state of the young victims, she tried to get more help to have them taken to hospital.

"The nearest person there was Aunt Harriet. She parked her car at the gate. People hurriedly recovered three of the bloodied children thinking they were still alive and drove them to Wentz Medical Centre," said the coordinator.

"One was not taken to the health facility because it was evident he had already died."

Was she able to identify that child? came the prosecutor's inquiry.

"Yes. It was Ryan Odeke," responded Odong.

Meanwhile, the rescuers managed to lock up the suspect inside the guard's room just in time to prevent the marauding, angry crowd that had gathered from getting a hold of him. They appeared determined to lynch him.

Then the Police arrived and managed to control the crowd and block access to the facility.

The Police then recovered the body that had been left behind. Odong later learnt that the Police had then driven to the medical centre and had then transferred all the four bodies to the City Mortuary at Mulago for autopsy.

That is, the bodies of Odeke, Gideon Eteku, Keisha Agenorwoth and Ignatius Sseruyange.

Court would later learn that, from the postmortem reports written by Dr Abdul Katongole, who conducted the examinations on the bodies, all the toddlers died of hypovolemic shock due to deep-cut injuries to the neck.

Okello, the accused, pleaded not guilty to all four counts of murder when the trial got under way on Monday at Ggaba Community Church, not far from the crime scene.

Members of the community, including the bereaved families, have attended the two court sessions for which the accused, heavily flanked by prison security minders, has appeared wearing a tracksuit jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans.

With a shaven head and wearing a calm demeanour through most the court session, Okello followed Wednesday's proceedings seated quietly behind the portable dock. At some point, though, he caused a stir within the audience when he broke into what appeared to be a cross between a smile and a grimace or cry. 

In that moment of conspicuous emotional ambiguity, he momentarily buried his face in his palm, before eventually steadying himself — as if that brief, dramatic episode had been nothing but an illusion.

By that time, Odong had already testified how the Police had taken statements from the caregivers of the facility as inquiries began in earnest.

She said the Police also checked her phone to confirm the transaction from Okello earlier that morning. Indeed, the money had come through.

The following day, on April 3, she was called to print out the mobile money statement, which she duly did from the MTN centre on Nkrumah Road in the city centre.

In court, she was asked to confirm her phone number used for that transaction, which she did by writing it down for court records.

On the day of the murders, Police had asked Odong for the receipt book, which she handed over to them and taken as exhibit. She would then be shown the same receipt book in court for identification and verification.

She confirmed that it was the one she had had in her possession.

After Odong, another prosecution witnesses was called to the fore, but with a firm instruction to the media as per the witness's wish: no cameras.

Eventually, the trial was adjourned until Thursday after the accused informed  High Court judge Alice Komuhangi Khaukha that he was unwell and not fit to continue with the hearing on the day.

That, however, did not go down well with the members of the public in attendance. 

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 MORE PICTURES FROM WEDNESDAY'S SESSION