Salim Saleh Alive In London, Says State House

By Grace MatsikoSTATE House has said Lieutenant General Salim Saleh, President Yoweri Museveni’s young brother is alive and well.“State House would like to assure the nation that Lt. Gen Caleb Akandwanaho (Salim Saleh) is alive and well” Press Secretary to the President, Mary Okurut said in a statement last evening. “This is to dispel rumours that had circulated to the effect that the Lt. General is dead,” she added.Citizens Concerned, an organisation formed by Saleh, yesterday demanded a public apology from Capital Radio FM for allegedly announcing that the General had died. They said, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) should investigate the false reports.But Capital Radio Joint Managing Director, Mr. William Pike, in a letter to Mrs. Jovia Saleh, said the radio never run any item announcing Saleh’s death.Pike’s letter reads in part: “At 8:00pm. we ran the following news bulletin. “First, rumours and unconfirmed reports are going around town that Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh is dead. It’s confirmed that Saleh is away in Europe but sources close to him, however, say he is alive and doing well.”This was the only news bulletin we ran about Saleh on March 6. This can be verified by tapes from Steadman Monitoring.However, other FM stations started broadcasting false reports that Saleh had died. This caused the confusion.Later that evening, we ran numerous statements by Juma Seiko that Saleh was in good health and on February 7 numerous live broadcasts from Saleh himself stating that he was alive and well.We regret any confusion resulting from our bulletin but we were only trying to help by making it clear that Saleh had not died, as per the widespread rumours in Kampala that day. On behalf of the Uganda Media, we apologise for any confusion caused by radio stations other than ourselves.”Yesterday Saleh called The New Vision asking about the “latest from the rumour mill.”On Wednesday he said, “I am here taking tea, tell everybody.”Ends