UPDF soldier sells bullets to Somali boy

By Pascal Kwesiga    

A UPDF soldier attached to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) peace keeping force convicted of selling ammunitions to a Somali boy in Mogadishu is challenging his sentence.

Mubarak Magiri was convicted by the UPDF unit disciplinary committee in Mogadishu after he pleaded guilty to selling 35 rounds of live ammunitions to a boy in the capital city of the horn of African country in March this year.

He was sentenced to one year and dismissed from the force with disgrace for the offence of failure to protect war materials. The unit disciplinary committee heard that Magiri while deployed at sheik Abdul AMISOM detach sold 35 rounds of ammunitions to a boy on March 24, 2012.The ammunitions were later recovered from the boy.

Magiri has file an appeal in the General court martial in Makindye in Kampala challenging the jurisdiction of the unit disciplinary committee of the Uganda battle group nine currently in Somalia to try an offence of capital nature that attracts a maximum sentence of death on conviction.

However the state said that the sentence handed down to Magiri was even too lenient given the gravity of the offence he committed.

His lawyer Marion Benibella on Thursday argued before court presided over by Brig. Charles Angina that the unit disciplinary committee erred in law when it allowed Magiri to take plea in an offence of capital nature.

She argued that the UPDF act that gives the disciplinary committees powers to try offenses against soldiers bars them from handling capital offences. 

Benibella submitted that the disciplinary committee violated the constitutional rights of the appellant when it allowed him to enter plea without legal representation.

She asked court to quash the conviction and declare the trial of the disciplinary committee null and void. But prosecution led by Capt. Fredrick Kangwamu asked court to ignore the submission of the defense counsel, saying even the sentence given to Magiri was too lenient.

The military court advisor, Maj. Augustine Bwengendaho said the defense lawyer of the appellant had raised a matter of law, adding that the same court recently pronounced that disciplinary committees lack powers to try capital offences.

He stated that in such circumstances the accused can be retried or acquitted before the matter was adjourned for court to deliberate on it later.