Moroto prison break ringleader arrested 10 months later, during UPDF disarmament exercise

The UPDF together with Police have finally arrested the suspected ringleader in last year’s jail break from Moroto prison.

In September last year , a total of 219 inmates overpowered prison warders at Singila prison in Moroto District, broke into the armory and took off with 15 guns and ran towards Mt.Moroto.

Since then, several members of the group that escaped have either being killed or arrested by a joint team of the police and the army.

However, according to Assistant Inspector of Police, Mike Longole, the suspect was arrested on Tuesday morning during one of their joint operations with the army.

“As we continue with disarmament operations, today morning 20th/7/21 at around 8:30 am, the joint forces recovered smg.no.UG.POL.56-5968030-40693 with 14 rounds from Kotido district belonging to prisons service after arresting one of the escapees who broke into the Moroto prisons armoury last year by names Lokolikau Lochu aged 40 years,” Longole said.

He confirmed the suspect as the ringleader during last year’s jailbreak from Moroto government prison, adding that operations to arrest more are ongoing.

“He has been using the same gun to carry out raids in Karamoja sub-region.”

10 months hunt

Lokolikau’s arrest comes 10 months later after the jailbreak in September 2020 in which 15 guns and 480 bullets were stolen by inmates after overpowering prison warders.

Speaking last year as he visited the facility to assess the situation, the Commissioner-General of Prisons, Dr.Johnson Byabshaija admitted errors but said all the suspects would be apprehended.

“We had some errors inside the prison and our gatekeeper was not adequately protected which is a structural deficiency. I have instructed my Assistant Commissioner in charge of security to deal with it very quickly. We must protect the gatekeeper with a cage such that prisoners don’t get access to him,” Byabashaija said.

“If we had watchtowers here, of course, we would not have had that problem because you shoot directly at the prisons from the watchtower. We are also going to have a double fence.”

Since then, a number of the suspects have either been arrested or shot dead in exchanges with security whereas several guns that had been missing have been recovered.

Some of the suspects were got from as far as Kampala where they had hidden.

Last month, security announced they had arrested one Michael Moore who had allegedly planned the mission.