Uganda police, in liaison with their Kenyan counterparts, successfully apprehended a fugitive convicted of murdering his girlfriend in Uganda.
The escapee had managed to elude capture for over 15 months but was eventually apprehended at a local hotel in Nairobi on Tuesday evening.
His plans to leave the country were thwarted due to a flight delay, leading him to check into the hotel temporarily.
Reports from Uganda's media outlets indicate that the man had taken measures to alter his identity, including changing his name and modifying certain facial and physical attributes in an attempt to evade law enforcement.
However, his presence at the hotel was captured by CCTV cameras, allowing officers to positively identify him as the wanted man.
"The CCTV footage at the airport identified him after he was flagged as a wanted criminal on the Interpol database," Kakensa Media reported.
In May 2022, he was convicted in absentia for the 2015 murder of his girlfriend, a 19-year-old medical student at Makerere University, whose body was discovered in a sugar plantation in Lugazi.
Following the denial of his bail request in November 2021, he vanished from the authorities' radar.
Ugandan law enforcement enlisted the help of international security agencies, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to track him down.
The suspect, who happens to be a doctor, will be extradited to Uganda to serve his sentence.
"Arrangements are in place to hand him over to Interpol Uganda who will thereafter hand him to the Mukono High Court in liaison with the office of the DPP, CID, and Kampala Metropolitan police," Ugandan police spokesperson Fred Enanga told the press.
Meanwhile, reports indicated that in 2015, the convict confessed to the murder of his girlfriend and took the detectives to the scene of the crime.
He told detectives that he strangled the deceased before slitting her throat with a surgical blade.
His case has been ongoing since 2015 and was moved from Jinja Magistrates Court to the Mukono High Court.
The convict used several tactics to avoid appearing before the court including feigning sickness.
