‘No Foul Play’ In Mysterious Uganda Deaths

The hotel where the Finnish businessman was found dead in Kampala, Uganda. EPA

Uganda’s police chief has played down rumours of foul play after three Europeans and a US national all died in the country within the last two weeks.

BBC/New Vision report continues:

The deaths began with a 41-year-old male Swedish national, who was discovered in his room at the Sheraton Hotel in the capital Kampala on 5 February.

The next day, a Finnish man was found dead in his room at the Pearl of Africa hotel, also in the centre of the city.

Neither had any immediately apparent cause of death.

Eleven days later, an American man who had visited Murchison Falls National Park, in the west of the country, was found dead in his hut at a safari camp. He is said to have died from heart failure.

Two days after that - on this Monday - a German woman died at a hospital where she had been taken after collapsing while on a nature walk in the same national park.

The deaths, coming so quickly after one another, have led to rampant speculation - especially after local media reports indicated that the Finnish national was in Uganda on the invitation of officials from the Internal Security Organization.

The speculation was further buoyed after journalist Charles Etukuri - who was investigating the first two deaths for Uganda's New Vision newspaper - was bundled into a van by security services as he left his office.

No-one knew his whereabouts until he was released on Saturday.

He told his colleagues at the New Vision he had been interrogated about the case.

"They believed I was deeply involved in the matter and that I had closely worked with the killers. That I knew much more than what I had written,” he said.

But Uganda's police, General Kale Kayihura, dismissed all speculation and insisted there was no foul play involved in the foreigners' deaths.

The police now say preliminary investigations indicate that the two men died from mixed drug intoxication, which included narcotics, while the letter in the dead man’s possession was later discovered to be a forgery.

However, the police chief did say arrests have been made, as investigations continue.