A police officer was reported to have shot and killed his wife, before turning the gun on himself at the Nsambya Police Barracks, Uganda on Thursday, 2nd of February, 2016.
According to an eyewitness, the neighbors were first confused at the sound of the first gunshot. Adding that, when she went back to check what had happened, she saw the blood and then heard the second shot and that at this point she raised an alarm and ran away.
“I advised the other neighbors not to go in there, and we waited until the police came,” the witness said.
However, police sources at Nsambya reported that Sabiti, who hails from Alur district and was deployed in Mbarara, had served in the police force for 12 years.
It is still unclear what transpired in the night between him and his wife leading him to kill her and shoot himself.
According to a Facebook source, Basudde Sam who shared the photos, the police officer, Mr Godfrey Sabiti, a father of three, took his family to go conduct a HIV test and allegedly discovered he was positive, while his family was not. Basudde wrote:
“A police officer attached to VIP Protection Unit has killed himself after shooting his wife dead. Police say Godfrey Sabiti, a resident of Nsambya barracks killed his wife before turning the same gun at himself after he allegedly tested HIV positive. We have recovered the test results of HIV for the wife, Akol and the children except for the man. These reads negative. We suspect that the man must have found himself positive and took a wrong decision. He planned it since he took all the family members for HIV test on January 24, 2017, said Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesman, Paul Kangave. This is the second officer to kill himself in just two months period. In December last year, Patrick Oloya, a Field Force Unit (FFU) personnel attached to Pader Central Police station ended his life after locking himself inside his uni-port house at the Police barracks.”
Uganda has an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 7.3 percent with 1.5 million citizens living with HIV. The Uganda National HIV Prevention Strategy 2011-2015 identified stigma as a key driver of the epidemic.
Their bodies have been taken to the City Mortuary for post-mortem treatment.