The role of police in the community is to keep law and order. The assassination of former police spokesman AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi together with his driver and personal bodyguard two months ago sent the police in a rage.
Across the country, suspects related to the murder using clues from informers, phone records, confessions from the volunteering public, eye witness accounts and even police investigation tips have let to the arrest of an array of suspects who are presumed to have participated in the murder of the fallen cop.
Just last week, some of the suspects related to the case who had be arraigned in court for hearing of their case told court they are in untold suffering from alleged police torture.
Suspects in bad shape
Visible with deep wounds, limping, broken bones, plaster all over and visible scars, the suspects asked the judge to have them moved from Nalufenya High Detention Centre to Luzira Maximum Prison over untold suffering from the repeated torture apparently to extract confessions
Torture gone bad
One unlucky victim of the alleged torture has been identified as Geoffrey Byamukama-the mayor of Kamwenge town who is presently admitted in Nakasero Hospital in a critical condition.
Pictures of a ‘half-dead” Byamukama with nearly the whole of his body covered in wounds have sent the public reeling with pain for the poor man.
His ordeal
However, our hunt for the Mayor came to an end last night when, another message slipped in reading thus; “Well, you guys, I am a concerned attendant at Nakasero Hospital. I want to inform you that the Kamwenge Mayor is admitted here but about to be discharged, not because he’s healed but due to extremely accumulating bills. He needs your help.”
Without wasting any time, with the help of our sources at the health facility, we forged means of visiting and talking to the ailing suspect. He had just had his terrible open wounds undressed for cleaning since he’s to be discharged the next day (today Thursday 11th May 2017). “I was picked from a friendly Commissioner of Lands’ office by two gentlemen who, following resistance from my host, introduced themselves as police officers Fred Tumuhiirwe and Byenkya before they took me,” he cried.
Tumuhiirwe is indeed a police officer at the rank of Assistant Inspector of Police (ASP) and Ronnie Byenkya is a Special Police Constable, both attached to police’s most feared Special Operations Unit headed by the equally dreaded SSP Nickson Karuhanga Agasirwe. “Outside, I was dragged to a waiting police van where I found three mean looking giant figures.”
Byamukama narrates that immediately the doors closed, the beating started as they toured the city without a particular destination. “They beat me with different stiff and sharp objects all over my body. I pleaded with them to stop and they said to save myself, I had to confess that I participated in the murder of Kaweesi on Gen. Henry Tumukunde’s directives which I refused to this day.”
After what appeared to be a decade of beating, Byamukama passed out. He came to when in Nalufeenya though he doesn’t know for how long he was in comma. “I was in a critical condition and they took me to a hospital [name withheld] in Jinja.” However, management at this hospital refused him admission, saying his condition was beyond their capacity. They referred him to Mulago National Referral Hospital.
A born of Kyabyoma Ward of Kamwenge Town Council in Kamwenge District, Byamukama says he’s not sure he will ever stand and walk on his legs again. “They also mentioned of amputating my legs. Now that they are discharging me in this condition, I am hopeless of any form of healing. Maybe heavenly miracles visit me.”
Accusations of torture against the police arent new
The lastest Human Rights Report released only two weeks ago named the Uganda police as the leading violator of human rights.
“I rather be taken to a maximum prison than be held in a police cell. Those uniformed law enforcers are brutal” an ex-convict who started of his jail stint in the hands of police.
Part of the story is adapted from The Investigator