As security agencies continue to solve the complex puzzle in the gruesome murder of Susan Magara, one piece at a time, a brother to the prime suspect in the investigation has been arrested.
Credible sources within security have reliably informed this website that Bikanga Muzamil, a city lawyer in Kampala was instrumental in the syndicate to have the young and former procurement officer Magara kidnapped.
Magara was reported missing by her family in February this year, days before they learnt the 28-year-old had been kidnapped. Her captors later sought a whopping Shs 3 billion as ransom from Susan’s father, John Fitzgerald Magara, a prominent businessman in Kampala.
Delayed by a tedious task to mobilize the hefty ransom, the family would later be sent two fingers of their daughter by the captors as a warning of what they were capable of. Three weeks later, Susan was murdered and her body dumped near Kigo, Wakiso district.
However, due to the sophistication with which her kidnap and murder were executed, security organs have taken some time to track her killers.
Last week, about 6 people including a woman whose car is said to have been used to transport Susan’s body were rounded up by operatives in Kampala. Some of them were picked up from a mosque near Usafi in Kampala.
Now, it has emerged that Muzamil was in fact the person who brokered a deal to have Susan Magara kidnapped. Muzamil is reportedly a brother to a one Yakoub, considered a key suspect in the kidnap and murder.
Shortly after Susan’s murder, Police released an audio recording of Yakoub tapped from a phone call he made to the family of Susan. In the recording, a man speaking Runyoro is heard negotiating with a lady suspected to be Susan’s mom and threatening to do the unthinkable if the ransom was not paid.
But efforts to arrest Yakoub have since been futile.
From what SoftPower News has gathered, Muzamil approached Susan’s father, John Fitzgerald Magara under the guise of selling him a piece of land. This move was only intended to gauge John’s financial capacity, if he agreed with the hefty price that the ‘seller’ (Muzamil) put to him.
When John made an offer during negotiations, the lawyer was able to deduce that he was deep pocketed. It is alleged that this is how Muzamil ended up tipping his brother (Yakoub) of the lucrative deal to kidnap Susan which would then attract a ransom.
New findings indicate that Susan Magara was kidnapped near a gym in Rubaga, Kampala after she had finished a session of working out. Yakoub, still on the run is suspected to have masterminded the kidnap.
In the audio where Yakoub was making demands to Susan’s family, he pointed out that he knew everything about the family, their wealth and the property they had in Western Uganda.
It is not clear as to why and how Muzamil singled out Susan’s father as a target, and whether he had prior dealings with him.
Similarly, it is not clear whether the said lawyer knew Yakoub as someone who had engaged in acts of kidnap prior to the one of Susan. But still in Yakoub’s telephone conversation with Susan’s supposed mother, he states that he has mastered the art of doing what he was doing and that not even engaging Police would help the family get Susan.
Susan’s family later revealed that her kidnappers had used over 15 telephone numbers to contact them in the process of negotiations and communications. But none of these numbers could be traced back to a specific name as the simcards were not registered.
This presumably was a deliberate tact by the criminals to hide their tracks given that they had executed similar crimes before.
Unknown to the captors, Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) has capacity to compare voices and positively identify the culprits.
This website have it on good authority that a background check conducted by security on lawyer Muzamil in the course of the investigation discovered that he had previously been involved in a number of fraudulent dealings which raised more suspicion.
Meanwhile in a related development in the same investigation, the Muslim woman who was arrested last week for allegedly transporting Susan’s body in her car has reportedly confessed to having killed her. She admitted that she administered the lethal injection that ended the youthful accountant’s life.
She is also responsible for transporting Susan from one place to another including Nateete as well as to a house in Konge where Susan was eventually killed.
Some of the family members of the suspected killer have informed security that they were aware their sister and her friends had abducted Susan but could not betray her because of the family bond.
They also revealed that their sister, a graduate of Education at Makerere University had been behaving in an odd way towards family members ever since she returned from abroad.
“She treats us with contempt, with mistrust,” one of the family members confessed to security.
In the meantime, investigators are following every single related lead to eventually have Yakoub apprehended and questioned.