On the surface there was nothing to connect the murder to what a budding young girl was - a case that gripped Uganda.
But a senior investigator with the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), the intelligence wing of the Ugandan army(UPDF) has detailed how purposed the use latest technology to crack the puzzle in the kidnap and subsequent murder of Maria Nagirinya, a former employee of Community Integrated Development Initiative.
Nagirinya was kidnapped from her gate in Busega Lungujja together with her driver, Ronald Kitayimbwa and bodies later recovered in a bush in Mukono near the Mukono-Kayunga highway.
On Tuesday, 52 year old Frank Nyakairu, a investigating officer with CMI told court that on the night of the kidnap on August,28, 2019, he received a call from his boss, then, Col CK Asiimwe informing him of the incident that he wanted him to investigate.
Col Asiimwe provided his junior with telephone number 0704970863 that belonged to Nagirinya. But the number was off.
"I contacted the directorate of technical intelligence under CMI to get the local positioning system (LPS) of the number at the time. It was switched off,"Nyakairu told court .
LPS is technology used to pinpoint indoor position, similar to the global positioning system (GPS) used to locate outdoor position and it triangulates signals from cell controllers to proprietary long-range, long-life, low-cost radio frequency electronic tags.
On learning that he could not get the local positioning system of the phone number for Nagirinya, the senior military investigator reported his frustration. His unrelenting boss tasked him to visit the the scene of the kidnap in Lungujja, Lubaga division.
In Lungujja, Nyakairu sought to get cluster information that would be useful to the investigation that now seemed complex.
Cluster information is got when a person(investigator) goes to the scene and makes calls using (mostly) MTN and Airtel simcards to be able to pick his or her own coordinates for the two major networks.
Call data record comes in handy
Having got the cluster information, the investigator returned to CMI headquarters in Mbuya to get an intelligence led call data record which would help him get data about all phones whether active or not that were in Lungujja where Nagirinya was kidnapped from.
The call data record indicated that Nagirinya's phone was active at 11:54pm in Lungujja , and thereafter switched off.
The investigator says that Nagirinya had earlier at 9:04pm called 0755848732 which was registered under the name Ronald Kitayimbwa and it was captured by the MTN mast in Kakungulu Zone along Entebbe Expressway.
When a person makes or receives a call, their phone is captured by the nearest network mast in the area.
The data indicated that Kitayimbwa had received the call either from Kajjansi, Nalumunye, Mutundwe or Kirinyabigo which fell under the mast in Kakungulu.
The call data record also indicated that Nagirinya had again called Kitayimbwa at 10:25pm in the same location whereas Nagirinya had also called 0706430472 at 10:46 which was in the name of Benadette Nakidde.
Nagirinya had also called 0751975008 in the name of Grace Nakalumba.
The three numbers that Nagirinya called prior to her kidnap presented yet another puzzle that was hard to crack by the investigators.
It was then established that two of the numbers belonged to Nagirinya's sisters whom she had called to open for her the gate at home in Lungujja as she returned from Mutundwe where she had gone to visit a sick colleague.
However, Kitayimbwa's contact remained mystery with investigators scratching their heads to know who he was in the puzzle at hand.
Whereas Nagirinya's sister had seen unknown assailants taking her away as she opened the gate for her, she didn't see Kitayimbwa.
However, the puzzle was later cracked when police was told that Kitayimbwa had been called by Nagirinya to drive her home.
Discovering Bodies
The following day on August, 30,2019 two bodies that were later identified as those of Nagirinya and her driver Kitayimbwa were recovered from a bush in Mukono.
"I rushed to the scene and found two bodies that had been hit with a car jerk on their heads," Nyakairu said.
It was later found out that earlier in the morning of August, 29, 2019 at around 9:32am, the simcard for Nagirinya had been removed and inserted into another handset, a Tecno.
The CMI investigator later made use of the call detail record which provides the phone printout, mobile money and all information on particular simcard.
It was established that Nagirinya and Kitayimbwa had money on their phones and at 11pm, shs32000 was sent to Kitayimbwa's simcard.
At around 5:55am, Nagirinya's simcard had seen shs260,000 withdrawn from it at an unknown location at Nalukolongo.
Meanwhile, Kitayimbwa's simcard had seen shs24000 withdrawn from it at 6:25pm on August, 31 at a location in Kosovo, Lungujja.
Breakthrough
As the investigator tried to crack the puzzle leading to the kidnapers and subsequent murderers of the duo, chance presented itself.
As the 52 year old senior investigator from CMI continued analyzing phone call data records, he found out that Kitayimba's simcard had been removed and insterted in another handset by an unknown person and in three minutes it was inserted back after the money had been withdrawn.
The investigator established through the serial number that the new handset was an Itel phone and on further scrutiny, it was found out that the handset had three ports for simcards.
The analysis also indicated that one slot had simcard with number 0788662014 placed, another had 0752723848 placed and the third had 0704373340 placed.
This was a big breakthrough as the investigator now had leads to one of the people with information about the kidnap and murder.
The lead was that the person who had placed Kitayimbwa's simcard in the Itel handset, withdrew money and later removed it to put in the original simcard knew very well what they were doing and the whereabouts of the deceased.
Use of GPS
Meanwhile, the CMI investigator gathered a team of colleagues and they used the Global Positioning System (GPS) to identify the movements of the owner of the Itel handset which had been used to withdraw money from Kitayimbwa's simcard.
It was the established that the owner always made movements between Nateete, Busega, Kyengera, Nabbingo and Kitemu. This was another good lead for the investigating team in their bid to crack the puzzle.
The team then planned how to arrest him and to this, they carefully identified one of the numbers in the phone which seemed to be in the same vicinity with the suspect that security was looking for and a trap was laid in Nabbingo where a lady was lured and arrested.
She would later lead the CMI team to her own house where her boyfriend was the suspect that security was looking for .
On arrest, the suspect who would later be identified as Lubega John Bosco admitted to taking part in the kidnap and subsequent murder of Nagirinya and her driver Kitayimbwa.
More arrests
Meanwhile, Lubega provided details of the group's boss who had masterminded and mobilised the team for the kidnap and murder of Nagirinya.
Named Arsenal as his alias, the suspect was the leader of B13 notorious group that operated at Mabiito, just opposite Nateete Police Station.
Lubega told the team from both CMI and police that they had another "operation" to rob members of the public that night and there, Arsenal would attend.
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"Lubega told us that it was Arsenal who deploys them. We asked him to call Arsenal to inform him he was ready for 'deployment' and in response, he told him to find him at their normal position," the CMI investigator told court.
Meanwhile, a small team of CMI operatives moved together with Lubega in a vehicle and on spotting Arsenal, they arrested him together with Kalyango Nasif who was also part of the gang that had kidnapped and killed Nagirinya.
The investigator told court on Tuesday that the information got from the three suspects led them to arrest other colleagues.
Following the earlier arrest, it was indicated that another suspect, Sadat Kateregga, alias Baros was HIV positive and used to get his ARVs from Mulago and operatives laid a trap when he had come for the drugs to arrest him.
Foggy Trails
The investigator told court that the gang operated in a discreet manner that none of the members had their colleagues contact saved in their phones whereas the simcard whereas also not registered in their own names.
The gang also never called themselves by their real names but rather aliases.
For example, Copriano Kasolo, the gang leader was called Arsenal and his simcard was registered in the name of Wasswa Katongole, Sadat Kateregga's alias was Baros and his simcard was registered in the name of Diana Nagawa whereas John Bosco was known as Rasta in his gang and his phone was registered under the name of Mariam Nakabuye.
On the other side, Shafiq Mpanga didn't have a phone.
The other suspects are Nassif Kalyango alias Muwonge and Hassan Kisekka alias Masadda.
Justice Isaac Muwata adjourned the case to today, Wednesday for further hearing.
