Court in Kampala has heard that the Inspector General of Police General Kale Kayihura takes suspects from prisons to police to coerce them into making confessions and implicating people in crimes.
The High Court’s International Crimes Division on Monday kicked off the hearing of a case in which 32 people are accused of murdering Muslim clerics in the country.
According to Twaha Mayanja, one of the lawyers of the suspects, Kayihura has been accused of threatening and intimidating them to make false confessions.
Mayanja told court that Kayihura has been pushing them to make additional statements implicating fellow accused persons.
He said, for example, Ismeal Ssentongo, Yusuf Kakande and Isa Musa have on several occasions been whisked from remand prisons to police and coerced to confess and implicate Sheikh Yunus Kamonga as the masterminded of Muslim murders.
Kayihura allegedly promised the suspects freedom and huge sums of money in return for their confessions.
Court ordered prison authorities not to allow police officers to take away accused persons from their mandated custody.
The court has also cautioned the suspects to be vigilant not to make any additional statements in absence of their lawyers.
Kayihura in more schemes
Mid-June this year, residents of Obugaga cell, Mbale sub county, Bukanga and the Isingiro district security committee accused Kayihura and AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi of having a hand in the area land wrangles which resulted into the bloody shooting of four unarmed civilians.
The injured Robert Karemera shot in the abdomen, Frank Birimba shot in the chest, and Frank Mugisha shot on the upper arm and Stephen Binyindo are all critically admitted at Mbarara Regional referral Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Emmanuel Katabiru, the Obugaga cell LCI chairman said that the land in contention measures 1667 hectares and that it was initially communally owned by Nyamishundo Cooperative society since 1960s until around 1990s when the government of Uganda handed over its full ownership to the society.
Richard Tabaro, the deputy Resident District Commissioner Isingiro, accused Kayihura of tarnishing the image of police and government.
He said locals were accusing police of defiling their girls, raping women and stealing their goats.
Tabaro said the RPC Hilary Kulayige connived with Kayihura and Kaweesi to feed him with wrong information to escalate conflicts in the area.
Source: http://www.theinsider.ug/