Former Uganda army boss dies

• The woman has been arrested and taken for questioning at Kampala Central Police Station.

Kampala

A former Ugandan Army Commander, Major General James Kazini, died in the early hours of Tuesday morning after a domestic incident.

He died after his girlfriend allegedly hit him with an iron bar.

Family and security sources say General Kazini was killed at the woman’s home in Namuwongo, a Kampala suburb near The Monitor Newspaper’s  offices on 8th Street, Industrial Area.

The girlfriend has been arrested and taken for questioning at Kampala Central Police Station. Mourners, among them military officers and relatives, arrived at the Namuwongo home as the shocking news spread.

The country was preparing for the burial later Tuesday of Vice President Prof Gilbert Bukenya’s son, Bryan, who died at the weekend after suffering serious head injuries in a car accident.

Major General Kazini’s body had not been removed by 8.00 a.m. Senior Police detectives arrived shortly after to take notes and examine the crime scene.

A small crowd of neighbours gathered outside the home.

Further details regarding the incident have not been released by the police. Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, the army Spokesman, says the former commander, who was facing trial for various alleged offences, was a “victim of domestic violence."

He had, among others, been accused of creating the 409 brigade in West Nile allegedly to topple President Museveni’s government.

He is reputed for fighting the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group in western Uganda as well as the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern part of the country.

The United Nations later named him as one of the Ugandan military officers that pillaged the Democratic Republic of Congo resources during 1997-2003 invasion.