Former Police Special Operations Unit commander, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Nixon Agasirwe, has been formally charged with the murder of former Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Joan Kagezi Namazzi. He was arraigned before the Chief Magistrate’s Court on Monday, June 16, and subsequently remanded to Luzira Upper Prison.
Agasirwe did not take plea during the hearing, as the magistrate’s court lacks the jurisdiction to try capital offences like murder. He is expected to return to court on July 8, 2025.
His indictment marks a significant development in the decade-long investigation into Kagezi’s assassination. The breakthrough came on May 21, 2025, when a key prosecution witness, Daniel Kiwanuka Kisekka—a deserter from the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF)—testified before the International Crimes Division of the High Court, directly implicating Agasirwe. Kisekka told the court that a man he knew as “Nick,” later identified as Agasirwe, gave the order to kill Kagezi.
Kagezi was gunned down on the evening of March 30, 2015, in Kiwatule, a Kampala suburb, as she drove home. She was shot by assailants on a boda boda who had trailed her vehicle. At the time of her death, she was leading the prosecution in the high-profile terrorism case involving the 2010 Kampala bombings that killed 76 people.
Her assassination sent shockwaves across the country and abroad, seen as a brazen attack on Uganda’s judicial system. For years, the case remained unresolved, with speculation pointing to a complex, coordinated plot involving influential figures.
Agasirwe, once a high-profile officer and close associate of former Inspector General of Police Gen. Kale Kayihura, becomes the most senior security official so far directly linked to the murder. His record is tainted with earlier legal troubles, including charges of illegal repatriation of refugees and possession of military-grade weaponry. He had previously spent four years on remand before being released on bail.
Investigations into Kagezi’s murder had earlier linked the weapon used in her killing to a string of high-profile assassinations, including those of Muslim clerics Sheikh Mustafa Bahiga and Sheikh Hassan Kirya, according to a 2016 government ballistics report.
Agasirwe’s name has repeatedly surfaced in internal probes into the conduct of controversial police units under the Kayihura regime.
