Kirumira’s kidnapped grandson recovered
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy allegedly kidnapped by a house-help has been reunited with his family in Kampala, ending 20 hours of anxiety.
By Herbert Ssempogo
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy allegedly kidnapped by a house-help has been reunited with his family in Kampala, ending 20 hours of anxiety.
The Police recovered Keiden King Lubowa, a grandson of city tycoon Godfrey Kirumira, on Sunday night from the suspects’ home in Lukuli-Nanganda, a Kampala suburb. King is the son of Patrick Lubowa and Kirumira’s eldest daughter Brenda.
Narrating his ordeal to his mother, the boy said his abductors did not give him food and made him sleep on a chair, which he described as “smallâ€.
The family ordeal, according to Brenda, started on Saturday at about 1:00pm when the housemaid, Solange Soso, left the home with the child. But she had told a relative of Lubowa, described as Jajja, that she was going to buy air-time.
The boy’s mother said Jajja was at the back of the house when the maid left. “When my husband returned at 2:00pm, the boy and the maid were missing,†she said. Brenda had been away attending a friend’s introduction ceremony.
About half an hour later, the 21-year-old Soso called the couple at home and asked Jajja to read the note she had left under a microwave oven. In it, she demanded a sh200m ransom.
“I am neither a Munyankore nor a Munyarwanda,†she wrote. “I am from Burundi and no one knows my real name. The company through which you hired me does not know my name,†read the note which was written in Luganda.
Soso added that she came to Uganda with sh35m for her education but it was stolen, which prompted her to seek ways of raising the money.
“If you do not give me the money, I will take the child with me,†she warned. She followed the note with phone messages.
On getting the sad news, the mother collapsed, while her husband almost failed to drive.
“I was shocked. I informed my father-in-law about the kidnap,†Lubowa said.
The search began immediately when Police chief Kale Kayihura assembled a team, among them the Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce to hunt the kidnappers.
Soso was cornered in Lukuli-Nanganda and detained along with a relative, Andrew Hategikimana, whom Soso accused of planning the kidnap.
Hategikimana denied the charge. Other suspects were the family’s guard and two people from the employment agency from which the Lubowas hired the maid. They face charges of kidnap.
Addressing journalists, Kirumira thanked God and the Police for rescuing the child. Kayihura, on his part, likened the kidnap and other such acts to terrorism, saying they affected the family hard.
Recent cases of kidnap, he stressed, could be cases of “organised crime or copycatsâ€, adding that it was a “new form of an old wave of crimeâ€.
He decried the breakdown of the local council system, which he argued could profile people in addition to recording their movement. “Police bye,†said the toddler, who was dressed in a white shirt, a red tie and black trousers after Kayihura handed him over to the parents.
Recently, 16-month-old Kham Kakama of Bugolobi in Kampala was murdered by suspects who extorted a sh30m ransom from his parents. The suspects are on trial.
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD boy allegedly kidnapped by a house-help has been reunited with his family in Kampala, ending 20 hours of anxiety.
The Police recovered Keiden King Lubowa, a grandson of city tycoon Godfrey Kirumira, on Sunday night from the suspects’ home in Lukuli-Nanganda, a Kampala suburb. King is the son of Patrick Lubowa and Kirumira’s eldest daughter Brenda.
Narrating his ordeal to his mother, the boy said his abductors did not give him food and made him sleep on a chair, which he described as “smallâ€.
The family ordeal, according to Brenda, started on Saturday at about 1:00pm when the housemaid, Solange Soso, left the home with the child. But she had told a relative of Lubowa, described as Jajja, that she was going to buy air-time.
The boy’s mother said Jajja was at the back of the house when the maid left. “When my husband returned at 2:00pm, the boy and the maid were missing,†she said. Brenda had been away attending a friend’s introduction ceremony.
About half an hour later, the 21-year-old Soso called the couple at home and asked Jajja to read the note she had left under a microwave oven. In it, she demanded a sh200m ransom.
“I am neither a Munyankore nor a Munyarwanda,†she wrote. “I am from Burundi and no one knows my real name. The company through which you hired me does not know my name,†read the note which was written in Luganda.
Soso added that she came to Uganda with sh35m for her education but it was stolen, which prompted her to seek ways of raising the money.
“If you do not give me the money, I will take the child with me,†she warned. She followed the note with phone messages.
On getting the sad news, the mother collapsed, while her husband almost failed to drive.
“I was shocked. I informed my father-in-law about the kidnap,†Lubowa said.
The search began immediately when Police chief Kale Kayihura assembled a team, among them the Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce to hunt the kidnappers.
Soso was cornered in Lukuli-Nanganda and detained along with a relative, Andrew Hategikimana, whom Soso accused of planning the kidnap.
Hategikimana denied the charge. Other suspects were the family’s guard and two people from the employment agency from which the Lubowas hired the maid. They face charges of kidnap.
Addressing journalists, Kirumira thanked God and the Police for rescuing the child. Kayihura, on his part, likened the kidnap and other such acts to terrorism, saying they affected the family hard.
Recent cases of kidnap, he stressed, could be cases of “organised crime or copycatsâ€, adding that it was a “new form of an old wave of crimeâ€.
He decried the breakdown of the local council system, which he argued could profile people in addition to recording their movement. “Police bye,†said the toddler, who was dressed in a white shirt, a red tie and black trousers after Kayihura handed him over to the parents.
Recently, 16-month-old Kham Kakama of Bugolobi in Kampala was murdered by suspects who extorted a sh30m ransom from his parents. The suspects are on trial.