Senior Police officer Agasirwe denied bail in Kagezi murder case

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Court has declined to grant bail to Senior Superintendent of Police Nickson Agasirwe, who has spent eight months on remand in connection with the murder of Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Kagezi.

In a ruling delivered on Thursday (March 19), Justice Isaac Muwata of the Criminal Division of the High Court stated that the gravity of the charges and the risk of interference with ongoing investigations outweighed the grounds advanced for Agasirwe’s release on bail.

The judge noted that although Agasirwe is presumed innocent, the State has lined up several active capital cases against him that are still under investigation, including allegations of murder, kidnap with intent to murder, aggravated robbery, and illicit enrichment.

Muwata noted that the sheer volume of ongoing investigations points to a pattern of alleged criminal conduct that cannot be overlooked at this stage of the trial.

“Releasing the applicant while these files are active would jeopardise the State’s ability to conclude investigations and may provide the applicant with the opportunity to interfere with those investigations,” the judge ruled.

The case

Agasirwe is battling murder charges alongside former Flying Squad Unit operative Abdul Noor Ssemujju, also known as Minaana. The offence carries 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.

Agasirwe, a former commander of the disbanded Special Operations Unit, and Minaana, who describes himself as a peasant, are both facing murder charges. The offence of murder carries a maximum sentence of death upon conviction.

It is alleged that Agasirwe, Minaana and others still at large, on March 30, 2015, at Kiwatule in Nakawa Division, with malice aforethought, caused the death of Kagezi.

Agasirwe, Minana’s arrest

Agasirwe was arrested on May 21 last 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 sentence by the International Crimes Division of the High Court in Kampala after pleading guilty to the murder of Kagezi.

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

Meanwhile, Minaana, who was arrested in 2017 over the Kagezi murder and later released, was re-arrested on June 24 last year by Criminal Investigations Directorate detectives at his home in Galilaya, Kayunga district.

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

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

Earlier investigations conducted jointly by the then Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, now known 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 scene on the night Kagezi was killed.