{UAH} IN THE CASE OF AISHA'S PUNANI: Top pub shooter regrets incident

Top pub shooter regrets incident

News

TUESDAY, 08 OCTOBER 2013 23:54

WRITTEN BY ZURAH NAKABUGO

2 COMMENTS

Deogratius Illukor at the Central Police Station

The first question that came to many people on hearing about the shooting at Top pub on Sunday morning was, why was anyone still in a bar at 5am?

But for Deogratius Ilukor, 24, this was not a one- off. He was a regular at the William street pub. A married man, he reportedly spent much of his time with commercial sex workers.

Yet he was not known to be violent. In fact according to his supervisor, the Operations Manager at Hash Security, William Tusingwire, Ilukor was well-behaved at work.

He joined Hash Security as a guard two years ago and his exemplary work saw him promoted to the controller or communications officer of the company.

"He receives information, guns, phone and radio calls in the control room and then hands them over to the armoury," Tusingwire said.

Before this, Ilukor had been a special police constable in charge of crime prevention, leading up to the 2011 elections. After the polls, his services were terminated by the police, and Hash welcomed him.

Despite the change of job, he remained a resident of Naguru police barracks. Tusingwire recalls that on the fateful day, Ilukor received two pistols and radio call sets from security guards returning from the field.

"Since he was in charge of control room, he was supposed to lock them in the store where we keep them. But he removed five bullets from one pistol and put them into another pistol, which [already] had four rounds," Tusingwire said. "Then he used a pistol with nine rounds of ammunitions which he fired at people in the bar," Tusingwire said.

Tusingwire added that Ilukor left one of the pistols in the control room which he then locked before going away with the key, heading to the bar, as early as 7pm although he was supposed to be on night duty. The company then contacted Ilukor's pregnant wife in Busia and relatives, without success.

"When we contacted him several times and couldn't get in touch with him, we broke into it, [since] the control room is sensitive. We realised one gun was missing and we reported to Jinja road police, SD Ref. 49/5/2013."

Pub trouble

Despite the best efforts of the now-deceased bouncer, Johnson Rukundo, Ilukor sneaked into the pub with his pistol.

For his services, Ilukor was paid a basic salary of Shs 300,000, but on this occasion, he spent half of it on Aisha, one of the prostitutes at Top pub. He was upset that the woman had the nerve to go with another man.

According to police, Ilukor got into a disagreement with Aisha at 3am, as she wanted to go out with another man.

"After few minutes, Ilukor returned into the pub and asked Aisha to go with him. When she refused, saying there was another man blocking her, they started quarrelling and in the scuffle, he [Ilukor] fired bullets at all people who were around," said Ibn Ssenkumbi, the Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson.

After the smoke cleared, one person (the bouncer) was dead and six others, including Aisha, were injured. Ilukor abandoned the pistol at the bar and vanished. However, after a day in hiding, he turned up at Jinja Road police station, to report losing a pistol.

Tusingwire said since the company had already reported the same case at the same station, Ilukor was immediately arrested and later confessed to the shooting. He is now held at the Central police station. He faces charges of murder, attempted murder, illegal possession and use of a gun.

Moment of madness

Tusingwire maintains that the firm had no history of any misbehaviour on Ilukor's part, arguing that it was a moment of madness. Apart from Ilukor, the police are holding the pub's supervisor, Jumah Sadat, and two private security officials, Peter Kimbugwe and Isma Senyange, to help with the investigations.

"There is proper evidence of negligence by security officers at the pub. People could come in and out without being checked," Ssenkumbi added.

He urged all bar owners and other business public places to tighten security at their premises.

"The bar has been stopped from operating until we talk to KCCA and other stakeholders," he said.

A day after his detention, a more reflective Ilukor said he regretted the incident, blaming it on excessive alcohol.

"I did not intend it; I was drunk," he said before he was led back to the cells.

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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