Kagezi murder: Agasirwe, Minaana return to court today

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Senior superintendent of Police Nickson Karuhanga Agasirwe and a former Flying Squad Unit operative Abdul Noor Ssemujju, alias Minaana, who are accused of killing the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Kagezi return to Nakawa Court today, September 24, 2025.

In the last court session, the accused demanded for speedy trial, saying they had spent over 180 days on remand at Luzira Prison.

The accused’s lawyer Michael Akampulira told the court presided over by Grade One Magistrate Daphine Ayebare that his clients have taken long without being committed to the High Court for trial.

“My client seeks justice and requests that investigations be expedited so that the matter is fixed for hearing,” Akampulira stated.

He said if investigations are not complete, his clients should be released, pending further inquiry.

“If the prosecution gathers sufficient evidence, the accused can be re-arrested and produced before the courts of law to answer the charges,” Akampulira submitted.

The lawyers request followed submissions by Chief State Attorney Richard Birivumbuka, who informed the court that investigations into the matter are incomplete.

Minaana claimed that interrogators at the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence in Mbuya barracks coerced him into admitting that the former Inspector General of Police, Kale Kayihura, had instructed them to overthrow the government.

The magistrate also directed the state to speed up investigations in the matter.

The case

Agasirwe, who is also the former commander of the disbanded Special Operations Unit and Minaana, who describes himself as a peasant, are battling charges of murder.

The offence of murder under sections 171 and 172 of the Penal Code Act attracts a maximum sentence of death upon conviction.

Kagezi was shot dead at about 7:15pm on March 30, 2015, in Kiwatule, a Kampala suburb, as she drove home with her children.

It is alleged that Agasirwe, 54, a resident of Kiyinda Ward in Kira municipality, Wakiso district, Minaana and others still at large on March 30, 2015, at Kiwatule in Nakawa Division with malice aforethought, caused the death of Kagezi.

Agasirwe’s arrest

Agasirwe was arrested on May 21 this year, after a convicted former Uganda Peoples Defence Forces soldier, Daniel Kiwanuka Kisekka, told the court that a senior government official named “Nixon” allegedly financed Kagezi’s murder.

The 43-year-old Kisekka was handed a 35-year prison term by the International Crimes Division of the High Court in Kampala upon his own plea of guilty in the murder of Kagezi.

However, John Kibuuka aka Musa, John Massajjage aka Mubiru Brian and Nasur Abdallah Mugonole, who are on remand in Luzira Prison, have since denied killing Kagezi. They are on trial before four judges led by Michael Elubu.

Kisekka claimed under oath that he was told by one of his colleagues, John Kibuuka alias Musa, that a man identified only as “Nixon” had contracted them to execute Kagezi.

While serving as operatives in the Flying Squad Unit, Minaana and Agasirwe were among the eight suspects earlier linked to the brutal assassination of Kagezi.

Minana’s arrest

Minaana, who was arrested in 2017 over the Kagezi murder and later released, was picked up on June 24, this year, by Criminal Investigations Directorate detectives from his home in Galilaya, Kayunga district.

At the time of Kagezi’s killing, Minaana, who joined Police in an unstructured setting in 2007, was a field operative with the flying squad, and he then worked closely with Agasirwe.

Investigators also discovered that Minaana operated a garage just 600 metres from the crime scene, which sources now allege may have served as a surveillance or planning point.

Earlier investigations carried out jointly by the then Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence now rebranded as Defence Intelligence and Security, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard—flagged the suspicious presence of several known police operatives at the murder scene on the night Kagezi was killed.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation operated an office at the Criminal Investigations Directorate headquarters in Kibuli after the July 2010 Kampala bombings that left over 90 people dead. Kagezi was the lead prosecutor of the 13 suspects implicated.