Former Ugandan IGP Kale Kayihura Charged

Reuters photo

By

Gloria Nakiyimba

Uganda’s former Inspector General of Police General Edward Kale Kayihura has been formally charged by the military general court martial sitting in Makindye, Kampala on Friday.

General Kayihura was charged with two counts of failure to protect war material and a third count of aiding or abetting kidnapping and repatriation of Rwandan refugees and dissidents.

On the two counts of failure to protect war material, the prosecution alleges that Kayihura on various occasions allowed the issuing of arms and ammunition to unauthorized persons including the patron of the defunct Boda Boda 2010 group, Abdullah Kitata.

It is also alleged that Kayihura failed to account for the guns given to his former office of the IGP that he issued to the Flying Squad and Witness Protection units among others.

The prosecution further alleged that between 2012 and 2016 Kayihura, by omission and commission, aided his junior police officers to take back three Rwandese nationals who had sought refuge in Uganda back to Rwanda against their will. These were Jackson Kalemeera, Joel Mutabazi and Innocent Kaliisa.

The charges were read to him by the general court martial chairman Lt. General Andrew Gutti. He denied all the three charges.

Dressed in an army Uniform General Kayihura appeared very calm in the dock as the chairman of the court martial read him the charges.

Members of his family including his wife, children and supporters filled the court room where he made his very first appearance since being arrested and confined at Makindye military barrack on the 13th of June.

General Kayihura, who appeared before the military general court martial in Makindye barracks chaired by General Andrew Gutti, denied all the charges and has been remanded back to the barracks until the 4th of September.

His lawyers Peter Kabatsi and Elly Karuhanga had asked court to grant bail to their client who has been on remand for more than two months. His lawyers had urged that having spent 72 days in military confinement without being charged was a violation of Gen. Kayihura’s rights.

They further argued that Kayihura needed to go, touch his wife, his children and sleep in his bed but all this seemed to fall on the deaf ears of Gen. Gutti.

He asked the lawyers to make a formal written bail application and ruled that the court will hear the written and not the verbal bail application on Tuesday 28th August.

Gloria Nakiyimba

Gloria has experience spanning more than five years in Journalism, particularly in field reporting, editing, newscasting and management. She is currently working with Capital Radio Limited [91.3 Capital FM and 96.3 Beat FM] as Head of News, a position she has held since 2010.

Gloria previously worked as the Kampala Correspondent for Radio France International [RFI] generating local story leads with international inference for RFI’s global audience. She also served as Political Editor for The Weekly Mail Newspaper as well as Online Content Editor for the California based Ugandan broadcaster KubutakaRadio.com.