Uganda’s Transport Minister, General Edward Katumba Wamala, who used to be the armed forces chief, has been shot in an attack which left his daughter and bodyguard dead.
Government spokesman Chris Baryomunsi confirmed General Wamala, chief of the defense forces between 2013 and 2017, came under fire while driving in Kampala.
Baryomunsi also disclosed “… his daughter and bodyguard were shot and both died at the scene,”
General Katumba has since been taken to hospital with bullet wounds and is receiving treatment, while the crime scene has been taken over by the investigators,”
“This could be a case of assassination by criminal elements but the investigations will establish the motive and those behind the attack,” Baryomunsi said.
Eyewitnesses reported four masked men riding two motorbikes fired scores of bullets at Wamala’s vehicle.
Tuesday’s shooting is the latest in a series of attempted killings of high-profile targets by motorcycle-riding assassins in Uganda’s capital.
In June 2018, Ibrahim Abiriga, a leading politician from the ruling National Resistance Movement party, led by President Yoweri Museveni was gunned down alongside his bodyguard in similar circumstances.
In March 2017, witnesses described four masked assailants riding two motorcycles, firing a hail of bullets at Uganda police spokesman, Andrew Kawessi, near the site of the attempt on Wamala’s life.
And in March 2015, Joan Kagezi, a prosecutor in charge of investigating a terrorist attack in Kampala in 2010, was shot dead by men on motorbikes as she returned home.
No one has been convicted of any of these killings.
