General Kazini was a loving man, says wife

By Steven Candia

Phoebe Kazini, the wife of former army commander Maj. Gen. James Kazini, has described her husband as a loving man.

“He was a loving man for all the time we have been together, which was 17 years,” she told The New Vision in an exclusive interview yesterday.

Speaking at her family home in Munyonyo, a Kampala suburb, the widow of the slain officer recounted the last hours before his death.

“My husband that day came back home late, at about 5:30am. He arrived in this official car, driven by his chauffeur. He called me to open for him, which I did,” said Phoebe, who was flanked by Kazini’s younger sister, Irene Muntu, and his elder daughter, Juliet Kyomugisha.

“He went straight to the bedroom and then returned to the sitting room where he made a phone call. He then left his phone of the table and drove away in the white Land Cruiser.”

While this was going on, she was busy getting their daughter ready for school and did not see her husband leave, she narrated.

“I was with busy with my daughter and did not even notice when he was leaving. I only realised that the Land Cruiser was not in the parking.”

Moments later, Phoebe said, she hit the road with her daughter and it was only when driving back that she received a phone call from a friend who broke the news.

“When I was at Bunga, driving back home, a lady called Grace Kafura, whom I know very well, telephoned me saying she was saddened by the death of my husband. I was shocked. I told her that my husband had just left home. I asked if he could have been involved in a road accident. It is then that she told me that my husband had reportedly been murdered by a woman.”

She said she drove home and called her sister-in-law, informing her.

“She came and drove me to the scene since I could no longer drive.”

Muntu described her late brother as a generous person.

“His shortcomings notwithstanding, he was a man with a large heart. He was generous and gave to all,” she said.