Man held for luring wife into suicide over debts

Jun 24, 2016

When his wife started reacting to poison, the man got cold feet

In what is akin to a Hollywood movie script, a suicide pact was re-enacted when a man told his wife that since they had accumulated a big debt and were not in position to settle it, they should both take poison and end their lives.

They later reportedly agreed to commit suicide with the mother of two going first. However, Police said the husband changed his mind after she gulped a glassful of poison.

When his wife started reacting to the poison, the man left their Makindye home and proceeded to the road, as he preferred to be knocked dead by a speeding car along the Entebbe highway, but still, he developed cold feet.

Police on Thursday made the revelations after they arrested Haruna Kasanya, 30, from his second wife's (names withheld) home in Nyanama near the Namasuba suburb in Kampala.

The jaw-dropping narrative is contained in his confession statement.

According to Police, Kasanya went into hiding on June 11, when his wife, Phoebe Nakyejewe, 40, died. Both were residents of Ssabagabo in Makindye division, Kampala.

"He wrapped the wife in a mattress and set the house ablaze to conceal evidence," said Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson.

According to Onyango, detectives gathered evidence that included the suspected poison, which they later submitted to the Government Analytical Laboratory for examination. By yesterday, the results had not yet been declared.

However, Onyango disclosed that Kasanya, while recording a charge and caution statement with the Katwe Police detectives, confessed that his wife died after taking poison, which he earlier purchased.

"I feared when I saw her struggle for life. The situation prompted me to have a second thought about ending mine and that is how I fled," Onyango said, quoting Kasanya's statement.

Onyango said: "He was unemployed and it was his wife who run a business, but it was at the verge of collapse, before they hatched the plan to evade paying the debt."

The deputy spokesperson disclosed that Kasanya is being held over murder charges and detained at Katwe Police Station, pending inquiries.

Onyango said Kasanya would be subjected to a mental examination, before his case file is forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for perusal.

A senior community psychologist at Makerere University, Dr. Paul Nyende, said there is a big problem of interpretation of a challenge, where most people perceive it as a disaster.

To counter the problem, Nyende said "People need to learn how to seek external help, which includes managing emotions."

A Police crime report indicated that in 2014, the numbers of homicide cases reported and investigated were 2,421, reflecting an increase of 4.1 %.

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