Uganda’s police spokesman, 2 aides shot dead in capital

Andrew Felix Kaweesi was being driven to work early Friday when his car was attacked by unknown assailants.

The spokesman for Uganda’s police has been shot dead by gunmen outside his home in the capital, a government official said on Friday, in the latest of a series of assassinations that have stoked fears of insecurity in Kampala.

Andrew Felix Kaweesi was being driven to work early Friday when his car was attacked by unknown assailants. Also killed were a driver and a bodyguard, said presidential spokesman Don Wanyama.

There was no word yet on the possible motive, but the suburb where the attack occurred is noted for its relatively high crime rate.

Kaweesi’s last public appearance as spokesman was at an event Wednesday where he disputed a Human Rights watch report that accused Ugandan forces of killing scores of people during an attack on a tribal leader’s palace in November.

Uganda has been rocked by a series of apparently targeted killings, many involving Muslim clerics, in recent years. At least a dozen Muslim clerics have been shot dead since 2012, killings that remain largely unsolved.

In March 2015 a high-profile prosecutor named Joan Kagezi, who had been involved in a case involving alleged Islamic extremists, was shot dead by gunmen in a Kampala suburb as she tried to buy groceries.