UPDF Officer denied time to attend to ailing father

Jan 28, 2015

When he wept in court recently, contemplating the possibility of his ailing father dying without seeing him, Col. Hassan Kimbowa didn’t know his mother would die days later

By Pascal Kwesiga                          

When he wept in court recently, contemplating the possibility of his ailing father dying without seeing him, Col. Hassan Kimbowa didn’t know his mother would die days later.

Kimbowa, the ex-commander of Battle Group (GB) 11plus in Somalia, lost his mother, Elizabeth Nakato on January 17.

The army court released him from detention at the Military police headquarters in Makindye, a Kampala suburb, for seven days to enable him attend his mother’s burial in Kikamulo in Nakaseke district.

He told the General Court Martial in Makindye, a Kampala suburb Wednesday, that his mother who was battling hypertension collapsed and died after she was informed that court had refused to grant her son (Kimbowa) bail to see his ailing father.

“She cried, collapsed and died after she was informed that you had denied me chance to see my ailing father. She knew my father was going to die without me seeing him,” he told court chaired by Maj. Gen. Levy Karuhanga.

Kimbowa has been undergoing trial in the army court since January 2014 on allegations of having issued 2,400 liters of diesel fuel to third parties (Somalis) in Mogadishu in 2013 without permission from UN coordinator of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). He denies the charges.

Kimbowa, who expressed gratitude to the court for having released him to bury his mother, asked court to extend his “bail” at least up to February 9 when his case will come up again to enable him attended to his 90-year old father – Eria Senkungwe.

“I am grateful to this court and the UPDF for having allowed me to go and bury my mother. I am not blaming anyone for my mother’s death, but she died because she could not understand why I would be denied to see my father. My father is very sick and I appeal to this court to allow me to attend to my father in his last days,” he pleaded.

The court rejected his plea and remanded him again up February 9. His lawyers, Mubiru Nsubuga and Allan Sseruliika, earlier submitted that their client had no case to answer and appealed to court to dismiss the charges without putting him on defense.

Sseruliika explained that Kimbowa was wrongly charged with the allegations based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the UN and AU which he was not party to.

He argued that Kimbowa didn’t have to seek permission from the UN mission coordinator to issue fuel and that there were no complaints regarding fuel misappropriation against Kimbowa from UN, AU and the Ugandan contingent coordinator, Brig. Michael Ondoga.

Ondoga, who testified for Kimbowa as a defense witness recently, said he doubted if Kimbowa knew the UN mission coordinator because he (Ondoga) also rarely interacted with UN officials.

Sseruliika also submitted that the Somalis were not third parties to the mission if the standing operating procedures are anything to go by and that his client shared fuel allocated to him with a district commissioner, deputy governor, and informers to upgrade roads and collect intelligence on Al-shabab. Prosecution will respond to his defense lawyers’ application on February 9.
 

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