Police constable Ivan Wabwire acted with full consciousness when shooting an Indian money lender, Uttam Bhandari, last Friday afternoon according to police surgeons.
Bhandari was the director of TFS Financial Services which regularly offered loans to police officers and other members of the public. His life was ended when Wabwire shot him over nine times across two intervals shortly after an argument at Raja Chambers along Parliamentary Avenue.
In the aftermath, Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) spokesperson, Patrick Onyango, explained that Wabwire was diagnosed with a mental illness six years ago and that the leadership at Kampala Central police station had taken a decision never to deploy him with a rifle or in situations that demand him to use a weapon.
“Due to the suspect’s medical conditions, Police management at CPS Kampala had taken a decision… not to arm him with a gun and they have been deploying him in beats that do require him to be armed. His current deployment was at the CCTV monitoring center,” Onyango said.
However, police spokesperson Fred Enanga has said that the force’s surgeons have since examined Wabwire and found him to be very normal.
“Surgeons examined him and found that he is very normal. Afterwards, we are going to take him to a psychiatrist. He has since recorded an extra-judicial statement before the magistrate. From the records so far the officer is very normal and of sound mind, we will wait for the psychiatrist,” Enanga said.
“The records that we do have so far confirm that the officer is very normal and of sound mind. So he was well-oriented and very aware of his activities. That is why when you see the activities of the 11th [May] and how he went back on the 12th [May] in a more sort of aggressive and prepared manner. That really shows you that whatever he was doing was pre-planned and premeditated,” added Enanga.
The police spokesman also noted that from the assessment made after his arrest, Wabwire is unapologetic ‘to the extent that he could’nt even say sorry for the murder.”
Emerging details show that Wabwire first acquired a loan worth Shs 1 million from TFS in 2020 which would accumulate an interest of Shs 320,000 in 12 months. He acquired a second loan in 2021 of the same amount for the same interest rate and period but this time he defaulted.
It is alleged that at the time of the shooting, Wabwire had gone to ask for a quotation so that the loan could be bought off by an unnamed bank. He returned the killer gun to CPS before fleeing Busia near the Kenyan border from where he was arrested over the weekend. He has since been transferred back to Kampala for trial.
According to Onyango, Wabwire used a gun that had been allocated to his colleague constable Steven Muromba to commit the crime. Muromba had left the gun in their shared house to attend to his sick child.
“Due to limited accommodation, the suspect was sharing a house with a fellow police officer. His housemate had worked at night and didn’t return the gun to the armory instead he went with it to their house shortly, he got a call that his child was sick, and he rushed to go and check on the child leaving the gun behind,” Onyango explained.
Enanga said Muromba who was arrested on Friday and detained at the former Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in Kireka has been dismissed from the force with disgrace. Police said he exercised a high level of indiscipline by taking the gun to his room instead of taking it back to the armory since he had completed his night duty.
“He exercised high levels of indiscipline and gross professionalism which highly taints the image of the force. The management sat and he was found guilty and it was resolved that he be dismissed from the police. He is now a civilian. He also has a criminal case of neglect of duty,” Enanga said.
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