Uganda prosecutor shot dead

A police spokesman in Kampala said the lawyer, Joan Kagezi, appeared to have been attacked by two men who had followed her car on a motorcycle as she drove home in Kiwatule, a suburb about 13 kilometers from the center of Kampala. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

"They were trailing her on a motorcycle," police spokesman Patrick Onyango said. "They shot her dead." Onyango said the police were looking into the possibility that the killing was connected to Kagezi's work as a prosecutor.

The state-owned New Vision newspaper said the gunmen had attacked her car on Monday evening as it slowed down for speed bumps, and that the lawyer died on the spot.

Last week, Uganda authorities stepped up security after the United States embassy warned of "possible terrorist threats" on locations frequented by Westerners.

Kagezi's current cases included the trial of seven Kenyans, five Ugandans and one Tanzanian allegedly linked to the July 2010 suicide bombings targeting football fans watching the World Cup final at a restaurant and a rugby club in Kampala. All but one of the accused had been charged with belonging to al-Shabab.

Somalia's al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the group's first assault outside Somalia.

The July 2010 bombings were one of the deadliest attacks by al-Shabab. The group also carried out the 2013 assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in which at least 67 people died.

jm/bk (Reuters, AFP)