Jinja Road police officer arrested over murdering girlfriend

Assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Joseph Wandera has been detained at Jinja Road police on allegations of murdering his girlfriend and then disguising her death as an accident.

Wandera is accused of murdering Subi Busingye on December 5 as the couple returned home from an outing at Lugogo Rugby Club. According to police, after the incident, the suspect walked to the police station claiming that his girlfriend had slipped and fallen into one of the open manholes next to the Umeme transformer along the Jinja road at around 2:00 am. 

“When he reported the matter at Jinja road, we sent the homicide team, but when they reached, it was found that there was blood around the manhole, and also got the shoes scattered around, if someone had fallen, they wouldn’t have got such traces,” Enanga said.

Enanga explains that the scene of the crime had traces of evidence that there was a struggle between the suspect and the deceased.  

“The body was recovered in the channel around 1 kilometre away towards Bugolobi, being swept by the water, and taken to the city mortuary. When the postmortem was carried out, it was found that she died as a result of strangulation,” he noted. 

Preliminary findings show that the two lovers developed misunderstandings along the way when the deceased threatened to quit the relationship resulting in a fight. 

Wandera is not the first police officer to run into trouble for the alleged murder of his lover. In 2021, corporal Sam Owuku, a driver of the Kampala South regional police commander, Rogers Sseguya stormed his fiancée’s residence in Buddo and shot her dead. 

In August this year, SPC Isaac Alioma from Kijomoro police station in Maracha district committed suicide after shooting his wife dead in a domestic fight. During a psychological checkup of police officers from the Kampala Metropolitan Police area which was conducted by experts from Makerere University in 2020, psychologists advised police authorities to consider having professional counsellors to help officers who undergo a lot of stress, which is dangerous to society.