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Chiefly acting on media pressure, the DPP Jane Abodo last week hastely sanctioned the criminal prosecution of widow Molly Bananukye Katanga over the gruesome death of her husband Henry Katanga (60) on the morning of November 2023 which was a Thursday. This investigative website has carried out extensive research and collected a lot of facts contrary to what the media has been reporting since that day.
The first lie told by the media is that Katanga was a very rich man who must have been killed by a selfish wife wanting to inherit his riches. Some sections of the media have gone as far as christening Katanga a Kampala tycoon yet in actual sense, the man was a pauper with even no job for himself. He always survived on Molly’s money because she had become a billionaire in the last few years. Her billionaire status resulted from the lucrative supply contracts with the Ministry of defense, internal affairs, Uganda police force and the UPDF. She has also been supplying grain to Uganda prisons.
During the years general David Muhoozi, who is her close relative, was the CDF of the UPDF Molly got a lot of contracts with the UPDF and even began supplying sensitive things under classified expenditure. This is how she began getting joint venture partners in Belarus and other countries in Eastern Europe. So, time came and she had a lot of money and didn’t even know what to do with it or where to keep.
On the other hand, Henry Katanga who she was forced to marry as a young widow following the death of her first husband Major James Katanga in the 1990s, was a jobless pauper staying at home. This always hurt money bags Molly who decided to start up a money lending business for him at Nkrumah Road in Kampala. The truth of the matter is that Henry Katanga was naturally a lazy man like all the other royals from Buganda, Ankole, Tooro etc.
He was just used to soft life and was never a hassler yet Molly always felt uneasy having a husband who just sits on the balcony of their Mbuya home and do nothing. To boost his self-esteem, she kept paying rent and providing capital for his money lending business which kept collapsing and never made any profit.
He would lend to friends and fellow royals from Ankole who wouldn’t pay back making the business to collapse many times. Because she wasn’t doing this to make any riches, Molly kept recapitalising the business. She would also buy furniture and pay staff salaries simply because she wanted to keep the father of her children happy and motivated and keep leaving home every morning to go and work.
So the first very big lie by the media so far, has been portraying Henry Katanga as a Kampala tycoon which he has never been. He would drive around in posh cars like Merc Benzes and even Land Cruisers and VXs. All these would be bought and fueled for him by Molly Bananukye who all along decided to accept him the way he was. Molly would travel to Dubai almost every three months for shopping and would return with suit cases full of new clothing for her beloved husband Henry Katanga who she always respected even in his state of poverty.
This is why those who know the truth laughed a few days ago when a media outlet reported that Henry Katanga’s death related to his decision to change the will distributing his estate in a way that didn’t benefit Molly. “What did he own for him to put in the will they are reporting about? What was his estate comprised of? Maybe it can be a will about his shirts and pajamas bought for him by Molly, otherwise there was nothing to his name that could be willed about with all the due respect to the deceased,” says a source who has known the Katanga couple since the 1990s.
What goes for matrimonial homes in Mbuya, Mbarara and Kiruhura (launched in 2020) are all registered in Molly Bananukye’s names because she is the real owner. She built each of these homes with her own money as Henry Katanga comfortably played the role of husband and father of their children-Patricia, Martha, Arthur and the 12 year old Siima.
The Mbuya house where he met his death from is Molly’s and she built it from scratch and the same applies for the Kiruhura home where he was buried. All the posh vehicles were purchased by Molly and are all registered in her names. Because she never wanted to make him feel uncomfortable being the husband and head of the home, Molly Bananukye Katanga respectfully always stuck to Rav4 and Harrier vehicles as Henry Katanga took possession and cruised around Kampala in the SUVs like Merc Benzes, VXs etc.
The other lie the media has repeatedly parroted was that Henry Katanga was killed moments after returning from a drinking spree with friends. This is totally untrue. The bloody incident happened at around 7.30am and Henry Katanga had spent the night at home with his wife and was never from drinking as the media has widely been reporting.
In fact, the 12 year old Siima had just completed his breakfast and was there waiting for the school bus to pick him to go for school at KISU when he suddenly heard his mother wailing, crying and calling for help as their usually calm and reclusive father smashed her with a baton. He banged her several times, smashed her head, broke her hands and she actually bled to the comatose state.
People at home felt the resultant trauma would be too much for the 12 year old and rushed him to the school bus before allowing him to know what had exactly happened inside his parents’ bedroom. He tried to gain access but he couldn’t and on seeing his friends inside the bus cheerfully calling out his name, Siima rushed to join them as people at home assured him his mum was okay contrary to the wailing he believed he had heard emerging from the bedroom side. This clearly shows that Siima was merely a responder and never the 1st hand witness of what happened as the media has been portraying him.
The media has reported and portrayed businessman Barnabas Taremwa as a close person to the late Henry Katanga but far from it, the two didn’t like each other. In his early 20s, Taremwa who hails from Kashari in Mbarara had met and married a 19 year old Beth Katanga (sister to Henry Katanga) but things didn’t work out well. It was an abusive relationship and Beth was never happy even after having children with Taremwa who is brother to Gen Salim Saleh’s wife Jovia.
They had a house in Ntinda but Beth was never happy inside the marriage. She got infected with a strange disease and eventually died very unhappy. Those were the early years when even treatment procedures for the disease hadn’t been developed as yet. So, she died very stressed and in very bad state both physically and emotionally. A stressed Beth one time cried out to first lady Janet Museveni who counselled her and gave her 30m with which she started a salon business in Wandegeya to make ends meet.
This was 1992 and 30m was a lot of money at that time. So, after the painful death of Beth which Henry Katanga and other siblings felt was because the husband wasn’t supportive enough, Barnabas Taremwa moved on to become friends with a kyotara girl called Hunter Kodet before linking up with another Munyankole lady from Ntungamo who had been divorced and later on joined the Judiciary.
So, even when he took good care of the children, Barnabas Taremwa who never officially remarried after Beth’s death, became a hated figure among the Katanga siblings including Henry Katanga who the media has deceptively been portraying to have been his close person.
This is why Arthur Katanga, the orphan who knows the full story, recently came out and demanded for proof that the nosy Taremwa had ever been a close friend of his slain dad. Overwhelmed with the facts Arthur put forward and unable to respond to the hard questions he raised in his affidavit, a shamed Barnabas Taremwa blacked out and withdrew the application he had lodged in Court demanding for an inquest while attacking the widow Molly Bananukye.
In any case, Henry Katanga was an introvert who rarely left home to go drinking anywhere with friends. And he has never been the party animal the media has been portraying. He was always happy staying home at Mbuya where he liked relaxing at the balcony most of the time.
The media has also created confusion regarding the relationship between Henry Katanga and Molly’s first born Patricia Katanga. She was his daughter in the sense that her real biological dad Major James Katanga died when Molly was 2 months pregnant with her. She indeed wedded with Henry Katanga when she was carrying the Patricia pregnancy.
The mother of the Katangas insisted that Henry inherits his brother James Katanga’s widow especially that the UPDF Major, who died abruptly left Molly pregnant. Henry reluctantly accepted and took on the widow to fulfill certain cultural obligations because the Katangas are part of the Ankole Royal family and therefore supposed to be custodians of cultural values, norms and practices. The actual truth is that this was all a forced marriage which both Molly and Henry didn’t initially like.
The media has also portrayed things as if Molly and Henry had always lived a violent relationship. Far from it, they were always the best of friends and always cracked jokes like they were siamese twins. A family friend who closely was always at their home at Mbuya and Bugolobi flats where they lived at first (and was also thickly involved in organising the Kuhingira and weddings of both Patricia and Martha) says he never saw them quarrel with each other in the more than 25 years he knew and closely related with them.
“They always cracked jokes and for Henry, he was so peaceful and carefree like any other stress-free Royal family member, he couldn’t even harm a fly. I never heard that he ever beat or barked at any of his children. Not even a shamba boy or maid. He was very peaceful which is why we have failed to understand which spirit possessed them that fateful day to engage in the violence of the 2nd November morning resulting in his tragic death and the wounding of his now grievously ill wife Molly Bananukye.”
Another knowledgeable source spoke about last year when Henry clocked 60 and Molly cheerfully, like any other loving and respectful spouse, flew him to Fort Portal when she treated him to a surprise BD bash. The couple spent several days having fun, doing all silly things and spoiling themselves at a recreation facility called Nyaika, one of the most magnificent hotels in Western Uganda.
Molly chose it because it was a cozy place and joked to friends that what Henry did to her during that vacation would have resulted into her becoming pregnant if she hadn’t already grown past the child-bearing age. Sources are now wondering how a couple which had been quarrelling for years, as the media has claimed, could have had such cozy moments as recent as late last year.
That they always sat and planned and agreed on where to take their children for education including the March 2011 decision to enroll the trio of Arthur, Martha and Patricia in expensive academic institutions in Malaysia. Even when some of the children became home-seek and demanded to return to Uganda, the couple closely worked together to enroll them into UCU Mukono.
The deeply propertied Molly Bananukye Katanga had her offices at Forest Mall in Lugogo-her office was always called No. 8- and Henry often came around. The two would then majestically walk to Drew & Jacks for lunch, a famous restaurant within the Forest Mall complex which Molly liked very much because of the organic food they always served.
When Martha and Patricia got married (to a hunk from Rukungiri in Martha’s case and close relative to Molly’s business rival Ben Kavuya), it was decided that apartment blocks be bought for them to move in and start families with their spouses. Molly and Henry sat together and agreed to acquire residential properties for the two girls and their husbands within the high end NSSF estate in Mbuya.
Obviously its Molly who parted with the money to buy the several apartments including the two that were given to the two daughters. Molly accepted this on the advice of Henry Katanga, her husband whose views she respected even when he materially or financially didn’t have much as a person.
Molly was also for decades an active worshipper at Bugolobi Church of Uganda and Henry was always very supportive of her in that direction. There are many things for which Katanga, who can unfortunately not speak for himself anymore, liked Molly including the nice expensive perfumes and fabric she always shopped for him during her numerous shopping sprees in Dubai and Europe.
An impression has also been created that Martha was the first responder who connived with her mum and the shamba boy to mess up the crime scene. It has also been claimed that she was very far and how come her and Patricia were the first ones on the scene.
The truth is the two girls live not very far from their parent’s home. The NSSF Mbuya estate where Molly bought them homes, to live with their husbands, isn’t very far from the palatial residence where Henry Katanga met his death from. With Molly in comatose state and unable to utter a word (was actually unconscious for 5 days at IHK), Martha was the first person the shamba boy rang.
But because she was heavily pregnant (only gave birth last Saturday), she relayed the bad news to the newly wed Patricia (whose honeymoon was starting on Saturday only for tragedy to strike on Thursday) who ended up being the very first responder.
On reaching the scene, the two young women were understandably overwhelmed seeing both their mum and dad lying in pool of blood unconsciously. It was clear Henry, their dad, had gunshot wounds with pistol lying not very far from his left hand. The mum was equally down lying in pool of blood. Reminder, this is Thursday 2nd November towards 8am.
In a state of panic, Patricia touched both her parents to confirm if they are still alive. The mum evidently still was but Henry, her dad, seemed in a worse situation. She immediately rang a medical person who came running and the first thing was to check on the pulse. This is how the medic confirmed Henry was gone. His heart wasn’t beating anymore. The mum’s was still beating but required urgent intervention because of excessive bleeding.
Upon briefing Martha, Patricia tried driving her to Bugolobi Medical Center aka Leman Hospital but realised there was predictably a lot of jam (this was around 8am on a working day). She jumped on a boda boda with her dying mum as others arranged for the ambulance which came and evacuated her to IHK. The medical person around suggested she had bled too much and needed urgent blood transfusion which the Bugolobi Medical Center advised would be handled better and more promptly at a more advanced health facility and that’s how IHK was recommended.
As the ambulance struggled through the morning jam with several roads closed by KCCA, the two young girls/daughters (not adequately knowledgeable about the need to preserve things like crime scene) agreed there was need for money to support the operations at IHK Hospital but also had to do something about the processing of the body of their father. This is how Martha ended up running to the bank to withdraw money for both the hospital and also attend to things like buying the casket etc.
Being mere spoilt kids of rich parents, they didn’t promptly know or think about implications of their actions-things like the crime scene having to be preserved were totally alien to the two young ladies and newly weds. That’s how they innocently touched everything in a bid to establish the state in which their bloodied mother and father were.
They naively touched everything, everywhere and this is how they have ended up portrayed as having deliberately interfered with crime scene ostensibly to cover up and protect their mother who has since been portrayed to have maliciously killed their father Henry Katanga who had been her husband since the early 1990s.
At IHK, blood transfusion was immediately administered to resuscitate Molly who even medics doubted would make it through. She had bled a lot and the thinking was that she wasn’t going to make it. She stayed in theatre for three hours. Her head had been badly battered, both her hands fractured and the fingers badly smashed.
Unconscious, she was put on life support, breathing through artificial oxygen, for the first 5 days. The first persons to visit IHK and have access to her were a State Minister (names withheld) and SFC Commamder Charity Bainababo, also army MP, who is closely related to Molly Bananukye because their mothers are sisters. Deputy Police IGP general Katsigazi is their cousin too because his mum is a sister to the two women who mothered both Charity and Molly. Minister Bright Rwamirama is their uncle, brother to the trio’s mothers. General Charity and the Minister immediately began wailing because they believed Molly was long dead and that medics at IHK were just delaying the news. To the two, there was no life in the unconscious Molly they saw at IHK.
The other falsehood the media has propagated, without Police investigators who know everything coming out to set the record straight, relates to ownership of the killer pistol at the Mbuya house. It belonged to Henry Katanga and government records clearly show that he is the owner and not Molly, the initially very naive girl from rural Kiruhura who doesn’t even know how to fire the pistol. It has also been deceptively stated that Martha Katanga the daughter feigned sickness to avoid being promptly arraigned in Court and remanded in Luzira prison.
Far from it, the young mother was already in hospital to deliver her first child. Police went to pick her but they backed off on humanitarian grounds because they arrived at the hospital when she was already in labor and moments away from delivering her baby.
That’s the reason why the state was unable to arraign and have her remanded along with Patricia and the other accused persons. At IHK, the deeply bandaged Molly (barely conscious as yet) has so far undergone five surgeries and more are being recommended. But Police pathologists have frequent access to her to monitor her situation and aid ongoing investigations.
To protect her against potential deadly infections, the medical teams keep removing and replacing head bandages every now and then. The helpless frail state she continues to be in explains why it’s doubtable if she will finally be arraigned on 4th December when the matter comes back to Court. As for Martha, there is high likelihood she will be arraigned since she safely delivered her child at a Kampala medical facility which sources refused to disclose.
All said and done, the media misinformation, aided by Police silence on the matter, has partly been encouraged by a group of powerful Westerners in the Kampala business community and competitor defense suppliers or contractors in Kampala, who have been very envious and outspoken against the financial prosperity and economic breakthrough Molly Bananukye Katanga has registered in the last 10 years.
Many of them have been angry that officials at the defense ministry (where many contractors from Western Uganda made a killing years ago) have been favoring Molly a lot to supply not just grain but other lucrative supplies to the military while for them are being excluded. Two big men one from Ankole and another from Rukungiri have been cited to be among the disgruntled veteran defense contractors who have been sleepless over the lucrative supply deals the defense Ministry officials have been ring-fencing for Molly since the early 2010s.
There are also two powerful business-minded ladies who are sisters and are from Mbarara (they married into money and power) who are said to be out to finish off and overcome Molly using the ongoing murder prosecution. The two ladies are said to be the invisible hand behind Barnabas Taremwa and others who are fighting Molly openly.
These have all ganged up to destroy and finish off Molly using the strange circumstances of Henry Katanga’s death in the hope that her total destruction will create a supply vacuum for the defense Ministry which they can exploit to get back into the lucrative defense supply deals which made them billionaires many years ago in especially the 1990s and 2000s before Molly and other fresh contractors came on the scene effective 2010.
One source said such Westerners have become so powerful financially, they aren’t prepared to tolerate generations of younger Westerners like Molly Katanga coming into their space. This is why they are determined to use the media and Police investigators to totally destroy Molly so that the President, who has so far remained silent, in the end feels disgusted, comes up and directs officials at defense to blacklist her and her business partners from ever supplying anything to UPDF, Police and Prisons.
“There has been a lot of competition among those powerful business actors from Western Uganda. They have achieved everything about money and wealth and its now about the prestige and self-actualization that comes with being accepted as the richest of all,” says a knowledgeable insider at the defence Ministry.
