A Kampala businessman has asked the Inspector General of Government to investigate three police chiefs who allegedly bungled up a property case.

In his petition, dated August 19, 2013, Hajji Numani Mubi Akulamunsi specifically accuses Old Kampala police commander Julius Gobolo and two others of mismanaging the case. Akulamunsi also accuses a ministry of Defence official, Amanda Magambo, and three others of trying to kill him.

At the heart of the wrangle is a commercial building on Plot 1 Lubaga road in Kampala, the subject of several court battles. According to its land title, the building has changed hands 12 times since 1936 when it was leased to the Indian merchant Abdulrasul Hassan Vahamvati.

Akulamunsi wants the IGG to intervene in the case filed as CRB1324/12 at Old Kampala police station. He accuses Magambo of using a gang of armed men to attack him on April 12, 2012.

This was a day after the registrar of the Court of Appeal, Alex Ajiji, wrote to the deputy inspector general of police, Okoth Ochola, warning him against continued deployment of armed police at the contested building.

“The police deployed on the property having been given strict orders to stop the applicant [Akulamunsi] from accessing [it] or utilising the same ... if the said allegations are correct, then they amount to contempt of an order of court issued November 28, 2011,” Ajiji’s letter to Ochola reads in part.

On November 28, 2011, Justice Steven Kavuma had issued an order overturning an earlier High court order for Akulamunsi’s eviction. It is alleged that, unhappy with the new orders, Magambo moved on Akulamunsi’s building and disarmed his security guard. During the fracas, Akulamunsi claims, his car Reg. No. UAF 416H was vandalised.

“They robbed Shs 2m from one of my employees...they took phones from workers and damaged them, and also took my security guard’s gun,” Akulamunsi claims in his statement.

He further claims that later that night, some people called him, using telephone number 0704454543, and told him he was lucky to be alive as he could have been killed. Police first charged the four with threatening violence but later the charges were amended by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions to aggravated robbery.

Akulamunsi claims the police then recalled the file from Mwanga II court and have since kept it. After nearly a year of waiting, Akulamunsi petitioned the police’s Professional Standards Unit (PSU), accusing the Old Kampala DPC Julius Gobolo of mismanaging his case. In his statement at PSU, Gobolo claimed that Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura had instructed him to keep the file away.

“I have since visited several police offices and have established that [the file] is currently at Kibuli with an officer called [Paul] Mugisha, [the commandant of Crime Intelligence], who has feigned ignorance of its whereabouts yet my sources in police tell me he has it,” Akulamunsi said in an interview.

The building

Gobolo declined to comment on the case and, instead, referred The Observer to the Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Directorate (CIID). Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba confirmed that the file was still with CIID.

“The case is under inquiry by CIID headquarters; the complainant went to CIID headquarters and complained about Old Kampala and the file was called,” Nabakooba told us.

When we contacted Magambo for his side of the story, he declined to comment. Akulamunsi acquired the building in October 2010 from Mash Investments, a company owned by Francis Mashate, the deputy executive secretary for corporate affairs at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos).

Mashate had acquired the building in March that year, at an auction by dfcu bank, after the death of its last owner, Haruna Mumya Musiiwa. At the time of the takeover, Magambo, Tom Rubare, Martin Rubombora and Medi Muganzi aka Patrick Sunday Muganzi – were tenants in the building.

After Akulamunsi tried to evict them on grounds of non-payment of rent, the tenants challenged the decision on February 7, 2011, claiming that their reluctance to pay rent was brought about by conflicting reports about the building’s ownership.

In a twist of events, the group reportedly secured police protection to enforce a court order issued on July 17, 2008 to evict Nasser Kiyingi and John Baptist Kizza from the building.

Kiyingi and Kizza had been sued by Friends Estates Ltd, one of the former owners of the building. Friends Estates Ltd was offered a lease on the building on July 3, 1968 but lost it to James Kalungi on June 1, 2001.

The ownership has since changed hands five times, to Akulamunsi, whose ownership is now being challenged by Magambo’s group. This group is working with a Canadian –Indian national, Anil Hasam Shamji, who claims to be holding the powers of attorney over the building from Friends Estates Ltd.

A copy of the said appointment issued on September 16, 2003 in Ontario, Canada, however lists one Anil Shanji. The same powers were transferred by one Anil Hasham Shamji to Patrick Sunday Muganzi (one of the suspects) on October 21, 2010.

In an affidavit filed on September 3, 2011 in the High court’s Commercial division, Shamji claims that his company fraudulently lost the building to a group acting through one Kiyingi, who transferred the property from the company names to those of James Kalungi.

Indeed on January 19, 2005, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire ruled that the property’s transfer to Kalungi’s names was tainted by fraud and illegality, a ruling that would have affected subsequent transactions.

However, it continued to change hands four times until Akulamunsi bought it in 2010, resulting in another protracted court battle that is currently before the Court of Appeal, and has sucked in senior police officers.

sadabkk@observer.ug