Autopsy report delays mogul son's body

By Umaru Kashaka

A postmortem report on the body of city magnate Haji Meddie Sebaggala’s oldest son, Umar Sengendo Sebaggala is delaying its dispatch, family members have said.

Sengendo, 26, reportedly collapsed as he was playing tennis with his younger brother Isaac Ssempala, with whom they lived in an apartment in Lowell, a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

His father is the proprietor of Sebaggala & Sons Electro Centre in Kampala.

He died shortly after arrival at Lowell General Hospital in Boston Metropolitan areas, Massachusetts. Sengendo was pursuing an MBA at Boston University and was expecting to finish next month, according his father.

“I don’t have any reason to suspect foul play in my child's death. He was my buddy. I can only say Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un (surely we belong to Allah and to Him shall we return),” Sebaggala told New Vision at his residence in Upper Bunga, an upscale Kampala suburb on Wednesday.

Sebaggala’s brother the Kawempe North MP Latif Sebaggala said they expect the autopsy report late Wednesday evening before the body is taken to Ugandan embassy in Washington.

“If the report is out this evening (Wednesday) then the body will be here on Thursday and we bury on Friday at his ancestral home in Kisaasi (Kampala suburb). We can’t bring the body without a death certificate,” he said.

Mariam Namayanja Sebaggala, the mother of the deceased, sobbed out her last phone conversions with Sengendo.

“The shocking news of his death hit me like a thunderbolt because we are told he had just finished his Iftar (breaking fast) and then decided to play tennis with his young brother Isaac Ssempala. Ssempala found him down after picking the tennis ball he had hit with a baseball bat and could not believe it,” the mother explained.

She described Sengendo as a religious young man who always had his siblings at heart and could call for the umpteenth time to find out how they were doing.

“We shall miss him. I pray to Allah to forgive him and grant him Jannah Firidaus,” Namayanja prayed