China to hang four Ugandans
Nov 27, 2008
FOUR Ugandans have been sentenced to death in south China’s Guangdong Province, after being convicted of drug smuggling.
By Hellen Mukiibi and agencies
FOUR Ugandans have been sentenced to death in south China’s Guangdong Province, after being convicted of drug smuggling.
They are part of five women and three men (all Africans) convicted of trafficking drugs and were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a court in Guangzhou city on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported. Four of the nine convicts are in their 20s, the state Chinese news agency reported.
In China, the reprieve (stay of execution) normally results in a death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, dependent on the prisoner’s behaviour over the next two years.
Chinese officials said the biggest bust was in December 2007 when a Ugandan woman, Jean Ndawula Kirunda, 39, was arrested trying to smuggle 1.98kg (4.35 pounds) of a heroin mixture into China.
Kirunda, arrested at Guangzhou airport after disembarking a flight from Bangkok, is among the four Ugandans who were convicted on Tuesday. The others are Annet Namisango, 38, Habiba Musa, 29, and Charles Candia, 23. Habiba was arrested in May trying to smuggle 1.2kg of cut heroin after swallowing the packaged drug apparently with the intent to retrieve it later.
The group also includes two Benin nationals and two others from Zimbabwe. The convictions came in six separate cases uncovered during the last two years.
The youngest person convicted was 22-year-old Taapatsa Lauraine Itayirufaro from Zimbabwe.
Seven of the convicted traffickers were busted trying to smuggle drugs into Guangzhou’s Baiyun airport, with several flying in from Bangkok in Thailand, it said. The convicts are said to have carried drug parcels ranging from 654 to 1,986 grams. Six of them had swallowed the drugs wrapped in pellets.
Speaking on phone from Beijing, Uganda’s ambassador Charles Wagidoso Wadibo yesterday told The New Vision that 35 Ugandans had been arrested since the operation against drug smugglers intensified last September. The group, he said, included 18 women.
“Many of these are young people in their twenties. Some of them are fresh graduates. The vice is on the rise. Most Ugandans are conduits contacted by big networks in West Africa who promise them visas and tickets to Asia. Most of the transactions are sealed in Dubai,†Wagidoso explained.
He added that of the 35, his mission had through “tough negotiations†managed to get the death sentences of 20 reduced to life imprisonment. He said the Government was considering negotiating an extradition treaty with the Chinese government.
The number of Ugandans arrested abroad over drug trafficking has been on the rise over the past few years, causing serious concern to the Ugandan authorities.
In July last year, the Minister of State for Youth, James Kinobe, after a visit to China, said a gang of Nigerian mafia operating in Kampala was luring Ugandans into drug trafficking.
At the time Kinobe visited China, 10 Ugandans were in jail for drug trafficking.
“After these people were arrested and interrogated, they revealed details and operations of their (Nigerian) masters in Kampala. They pleaded for mercy,†Kinobe told journalists. He had a detailed file containing classified testimonies of the 10 Ugandans, describing the bases and nature of the Nigerian drug mafia in Kampala, he added.
In 2007, a Ugandan woman, Rose Birungi, was jailed in the UK for drug trafficking. Birungi, who was the minister of information of Toro kingdom, was arrested at Heathrow Airport when sniffer dogs detected narcotics in her luggage.
In March 2008, another Ugandan, Francis Ogudo Tukei, was sentenced to 22 years in jail in Mauritius for possession and trafficking in heroin. Tukei, 35, was arrested at the international airport of Plaisance, in the south of the island in September 2005.
The Indian security in April 2003 arrested a 27-year-old Uganda woman, Ndagire S. Elizabeth, at the New Delhi airport trying to smuggle out heroin. In September 2001, the then head of the Uganda Police Anti-narcotics unit, Johnson Ayela, said over 30 Ugandans were being held in the US for drug trafficking.
According to Ugandan security authorities, Entebbe International Airport is also being used as a transit route for heroin and mandrax from the Far East en route to South Africa.
There have been increased seizures of heroin, with Nigerian connections, bound for Uganda through Ethiopia.
Due to the large amount of the substance seized, “one is inclined to conclude that Uganda is in this context used as a major country of transit,†according to the 2007 report of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.
Seven kilogrammes of cocaine and 1.34kg of heroin were seized in 2007 at Entebbe Airport.
The Police arrested five Pakistani nationals in connection with the substance, the Police crime report of 2007 said.
FOUR Ugandans have been sentenced to death in south China’s Guangdong Province, after being convicted of drug smuggling.
They are part of five women and three men (all Africans) convicted of trafficking drugs and were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a court in Guangzhou city on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported. Four of the nine convicts are in their 20s, the state Chinese news agency reported.
In China, the reprieve (stay of execution) normally results in a death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, dependent on the prisoner’s behaviour over the next two years.
Chinese officials said the biggest bust was in December 2007 when a Ugandan woman, Jean Ndawula Kirunda, 39, was arrested trying to smuggle 1.98kg (4.35 pounds) of a heroin mixture into China.
Kirunda, arrested at Guangzhou airport after disembarking a flight from Bangkok, is among the four Ugandans who were convicted on Tuesday. The others are Annet Namisango, 38, Habiba Musa, 29, and Charles Candia, 23. Habiba was arrested in May trying to smuggle 1.2kg of cut heroin after swallowing the packaged drug apparently with the intent to retrieve it later.
The group also includes two Benin nationals and two others from Zimbabwe. The convictions came in six separate cases uncovered during the last two years.
The youngest person convicted was 22-year-old Taapatsa Lauraine Itayirufaro from Zimbabwe.
Seven of the convicted traffickers were busted trying to smuggle drugs into Guangzhou’s Baiyun airport, with several flying in from Bangkok in Thailand, it said. The convicts are said to have carried drug parcels ranging from 654 to 1,986 grams. Six of them had swallowed the drugs wrapped in pellets.
Speaking on phone from Beijing, Uganda’s ambassador Charles Wagidoso Wadibo yesterday told The New Vision that 35 Ugandans had been arrested since the operation against drug smugglers intensified last September. The group, he said, included 18 women.
“Many of these are young people in their twenties. Some of them are fresh graduates. The vice is on the rise. Most Ugandans are conduits contacted by big networks in West Africa who promise them visas and tickets to Asia. Most of the transactions are sealed in Dubai,†Wagidoso explained.
He added that of the 35, his mission had through “tough negotiations†managed to get the death sentences of 20 reduced to life imprisonment. He said the Government was considering negotiating an extradition treaty with the Chinese government.
The number of Ugandans arrested abroad over drug trafficking has been on the rise over the past few years, causing serious concern to the Ugandan authorities.
In July last year, the Minister of State for Youth, James Kinobe, after a visit to China, said a gang of Nigerian mafia operating in Kampala was luring Ugandans into drug trafficking.
At the time Kinobe visited China, 10 Ugandans were in jail for drug trafficking.
“After these people were arrested and interrogated, they revealed details and operations of their (Nigerian) masters in Kampala. They pleaded for mercy,†Kinobe told journalists. He had a detailed file containing classified testimonies of the 10 Ugandans, describing the bases and nature of the Nigerian drug mafia in Kampala, he added.
In 2007, a Ugandan woman, Rose Birungi, was jailed in the UK for drug trafficking. Birungi, who was the minister of information of Toro kingdom, was arrested at Heathrow Airport when sniffer dogs detected narcotics in her luggage.
In March 2008, another Ugandan, Francis Ogudo Tukei, was sentenced to 22 years in jail in Mauritius for possession and trafficking in heroin. Tukei, 35, was arrested at the international airport of Plaisance, in the south of the island in September 2005.
The Indian security in April 2003 arrested a 27-year-old Uganda woman, Ndagire S. Elizabeth, at the New Delhi airport trying to smuggle out heroin. In September 2001, the then head of the Uganda Police Anti-narcotics unit, Johnson Ayela, said over 30 Ugandans were being held in the US for drug trafficking.
According to Ugandan security authorities, Entebbe International Airport is also being used as a transit route for heroin and mandrax from the Far East en route to South Africa.
There have been increased seizures of heroin, with Nigerian connections, bound for Uganda through Ethiopia.
Due to the large amount of the substance seized, “one is inclined to conclude that Uganda is in this context used as a major country of transit,†according to the 2007 report of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.
Seven kilogrammes of cocaine and 1.34kg of heroin were seized in 2007 at Entebbe Airport.
The Police arrested five Pakistani nationals in connection with the substance, the Police crime report of 2007 said.