A Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) operative has revealed that they used the mother of Yusuf Lubega to track down the kidnappers of Susan Magara. 

Lubega is among the nine people standing trial over the kidnap and eventual murder of Magara on February 7, 2018. 

The others are Abubakar Kyewolwa, Hussein Wasswa, Muzamiru Ssali, Hassan Kato-Miiro, Amir Ismail Bukenya, Musa Buvumbo, Hajara Nakandi and Mahad Kisalita, the former imam of Usafi makeshift mosque in Mengo-Kisenyi. 

Testifying as prosecution witness number 10 on October 31, 2023, Frank Nyakairu, 52, said after analysing the call data of the telephone numbers which the kidnappers used to demand the ransom from the family, they looked for Lubega’s mother since one of the telephone numbers was registered in her name. She thus led them to Lubega. 

“My lord, on the evening of April 27, 2018, we tricked Lubega’s mother and she identified the user of one of the telephone numbers as Yusuf Lubega based at Usafi Mosque. We told Lubega’s brother to call him and inform him that their mother had been arrested and the security would release her if they paid sh50,000 and he told him to find him at Usafi Mosque,” he said. 

He added that when they went to Usafi Mosque, they found Lubega standing in the Mosque doorway. As security closed in to arrest him, Lubega reportedly ran back inside the Mosque where another man came out with a panga and chopped off the hand of one of the security personnel. 

Upon arrest, Lubega confessed to the kidnap and murder of Magara and he revealed his co-accused, Nyakairu informed the court presided over by High Court judge Alex Ajiji. 

Nyakairu said Lubega informed investigators that Magara was to be kidnapped a week earlier after attending a birthday party, but that on that day, she was in the company of other people and their surveillance team headed by Kyewolwa was ordered to withdraw from her home in Lungujja.

The court heard that it was Wasswa, Miiro, Kyewolwa and Nakandi who kept Magara during the period of captivity and that it was Buvumbo, a medical assistant, who chopped off her two fingers and treated her before she was murdered. 

Inside the mosque, Nyakairu said they found 94 children aged between 3 and 12, as well as 30 adults and a tunnel which they said was a detention facility for those who misbehaved. 

Nyakairu told the court that Nakandi had earlier been arrested over kidnap to procure a ransom but that her brother who worked with the State House legal department influenced her release. 

Nyakairu said it was Nakandi who exchanged the $200,000 for Uganda shillings and that they later used part of it to buy land in Buikwe and Masuliita, where they would allegedly bury victims of ransom kidnapping. 

Nyakairu also said Yakub Byensi, a former combatant with the Allied Democratic Forces, escaped arrest and that intelligence reveals that he stays on one of the islands in Buikwe district. 

Nyakairu said it was Nakandi’s car that was used to transport Susan and it is in Police custody.  

Nyakairu said following the kidnap of Magara, he was instructed by his boss Brig. Charles Asiimwe to work closely with Magara’s family to find her whereabouts. 

“At first, the family abandoned the security and agreed to pay the $200,000 (sh700m) ransom, but I later got information that Immaculate Magara (Susan’s mother) had received a call from the kidnappers. I requested both her telephone number and that of the caller. The call was placed at Nakawuka in Nateete, I rushed there to get all the numbers in the area,” Nyakairu said. 

Chief state attorney Joseph Kyomuhendo and senior state attorney Irene Nakimbugwe are prosecuting the matter. 

The 28-year-old Magara was kidnapped on February 7, 2018, on Kabaka Anjagala Road in Mengo as she drove back home in Lungujja and her car was later found abandoned near her gate. 

Her kidnappers then contacted the family and demanded $1m (sh3.7b) before they could release her. 

Unfortunately, she was murdered despite her family paying a sh700m ransom.