Ten years after Uganda was shaken by the cold-blooded assassination of Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Namazzi Kagezi, justice has finally caught up with one of her killers.
In a dramatic courtroom development on Monday, May 19, 2025, the High Court of Uganda, sitting at the International Crimes Division, accepted a guilty plea from former Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) corporal Daniel Kiwanuka Kisekka, 47.
Under a plea bargain arrangement, Kisekka admitted to participating in the targeted killing of the prominent prosecutor on March 30, 2015.
Court handed him a 35-year prison sentence.
Kagezi, who at the time led the International Crimes Division of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), was gunned down in Kiwatule, Kampala, in full view of her children. She had been at the forefront of prosecuting some of Uganda’s most dangerous terrorists and war criminals.
Her murder stunned the nation and cast a long shadow over the country’s justice system.
Calculated plot
Court records revealed that the assassination was not random. It was a calculated and sinister plot, allegedly commissioned by a high-profile, unnamed individual.
Kisekka was allegedly part of a four-man team of ex-military and known criminals contracted for the hit, the others named as John Kibuuka, Nasur Abdallah Mugonole, and Massajjage John.
According to facts presented during the plea bargain proceedings, the group was promised USD200,000 for the job. Each is said to have received an initial payment of shs500,000.
On the day of the murder, Kisekka and Mugonole served as the backup unit, while Kibuuka and Massajjage executed the shooting.
It was Kibuuka who allegedly pulled the trigger, firing two bullets into Kagezi’s neck as she sat in her car.
Despite intense investigations, the case stalled for nearly eight years. Then in 2023, a breakthrough came. Kisekka was arrested on unrelated charges in Luwero.
While in custody, his past caught up with him. He confessed to his role in the assassination, offering key details that helped authorities reconstruct the crime and confirm the identities of his accomplices.
The investigation took a bizarre turn when Kisekka revealed that shortly after the killing, he and two co-conspirators visited a witchdoctor. The ritual, they believed, would shield them from arrest and “silence the case.”
Trail of violence
Kisekka’s criminal path stretches back nearly two decades. In 2008, he was charged with aggravated robbery before the General Court Martial, only to escape from Makindye Military Barracks.
By the time of Kagezi’s murder in 2015, he was already a fugitive. The weapons used in the killing were traced to those he allegedly stole after deserting the UPDF in 2006.
Until now, he had never been convicted.
The court cited several aggravating factors in its sentencing: the presence of Kagezi’s children at the murder scene, the profit motive behind the crime, and the brazen attack on a state official upholding the law. The brutality of the act, and the strategic use of military training to carry it out, made the murder particularly egregious.
“This conviction is a landmark victory,” said Thomas Jatiko, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, who led the ODPP’s legal team in the case. “It’s a firm signal that time does not erode the resolve to deliver justice.”
The presiding panel, led by Justice Michael Elubu, and including Justices Stephen Mubiru, Dr. Winfred Nabisinde, and Celia Nagawa, endorsed the plea bargain, recognizing the value of a confession in uncovering a wider network behind the killing.
The case against the remaining accused, Kibuuka, Massajjage, and Mugonole, continues. But Kisekka’s conviction is a pivotal step in Uganda’s longest-running murder probe involving a state prosecutor.
Joan Kagezi’s legacy remains profound. A fearless prosecutor, she was instrumental in securing convictions in several terrorism and war crimes trials. Her murder was a calculated attack not only on an individual but on the justice system she represented.
This conviction reinforces the need for robust protection of prosecutors and judicial officers. It also demonstrates the value of strategic plea bargaining in tackling organized crime, particularly when perpetrators have state or military ties.
Gratitude has been extended to the Uganda Police Force’s Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) and the Internal Security Organisation (ISO), whose renewed intelligence work was crucial to the case’s resolution.
