China holds 52 Ugandans

Mar 04, 2009

Fifty Ugandans are held in China and Iran over drug trafficking, Ugandan ambassadors there have said.

By Madinah Tebajjukira

Fifty Ugandans are held in China and Iran over drug trafficking, Ugandan ambassadors there have said.

Three of the detainees are Makerere University graduates, they said.

Thirty-eight Ugandans are held in China, eight of whom are on death row, 11 on life imprisonment, while the rest are serving 20-year sentences.

A few are still battling with court proceedings, according to Ugandan ambassador to China Charles Wagidoso Madiba.

Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Kisule, the Ugandan ambassador to Iran, yesterday said 12 Ugandans were being held in Iran.

Eight were sentenced to death while four are serving life imprisonment.

The Ugandans held in Iran and China were arrested between 2006 and 2008.

“All prisoners have been to courts without legal representation, charged and sentenced. The minimum is life imprisonment and maximum sentence is death on conviction,” Kisule said.

The news came to light yesterday when the Ugandan ambassadors briefed the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs on the new foreign policies.

A total of 27 ambassadors attended the meeting held at Parliament.

Wagidoso said there was a racket of foreigners in Uganda, particularly from Nigeria and Pakistan, who use Ugandans as conduits for drug trafficking.

He said the Ugandans were promised between $3,000 and $4,000 per trip.

The Police are investigating the matter, Wagidoso said.

The group targets youth between 20 and 35 years, he added.

“Most of these detainees are young people and three of them graduated from Makerere last year. They confessed to the charges against them,” he said.

Wagidoso said of the Ugandans held in China, 21 are women, while in Iran, four women were convicted.

Wagidoso said the Government was lobbying the Chinese government to sign an extradition treaty to have the detainees serve their sentences in Uganda.

The ambassador to Cairo, Omar Lubulwa, said the problem had been aggravated by the high unemployment level in Uganda.

As a result, he argued, fresh graduates preferred going abroad hoping to get high paying jobs.

According to Lubulwa, the traffickers target girls who, she said, work as slaves in the homes of rich Arabs under harsh conditions.

“On arrival, the Arabs withdrawal their passports, deny them access to communication gadgets and they are severely mistreated,” Lubulwa said.

“A year back, we rescued three girls from those homes, but one of them became mentally perturbed because of the mistreatment,” the ambassador added.

The ambassadors urged the Government to institute tougher laws against drug trafficking.

The committee chairman, Umar Lule Mawiya, promised to forward the matter to the Cabinet.

Betty Akech, Uganda’s new representative to Khartoum, asked the Government to monitor foreign employment agencies which claim to have jobs with good pay yet they are middle-men for the drug businesss.

The ambassadors also complained of little pay which they said had made them unable to execute their duties effectively.

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