New Interpol boss Yiga vows to tackle small arms control

Mar 28, 2017

Fred Yiga has replaced Asan Kasingye as Director of Interpol

KAMPALA - The newly appointed director of Interpol, Assistant Inspector General of Police, Fred Yiga has said that his main concern will be to maintain integrity of the Uganda Police Force and Uganda before the international community and strengthen sharing of information about criminal activities from within and across the borders.

Yiga said the most urgent issues for him would be to improve Uganda's relationship with neighbouring countries in terms of security by ensuring they meet more often and point out salient issues including small arms control within the region.

He was on Monday commenting on Uganda's move to tackle cross border crime after President Yoweri Museveni recently pointed out that some of the suspected criminals involved in murders of high profile personalities were coming from neighbouring DR Congo.

Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura also said that one of the suspects in the murder of AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi was arrested at the border with DR Congo as he attempted to flee the country.

Yiga who officially received his office as the new Director of Interpol replacing Asan Kasingye, said he would work closely with sister security organizations to share information and follow up on criminals.

Deputy IGP, Okoth Ochola presided over the handover ceremony at the Interpol offices in Kololo. 

"We want to assure the country that we are not lying down; we are doing everything possible to get to the core of the criminal patterns so that Uganda remains the beautiful country everyone will continue to enjoy" Yiga said.

He said his priorities as director Interpol would be to deal with cross-border crime, cyber of internet crime and closely follow all crime patterns.

He said that Police was concerned with by small arms in circulation in the region especially because Uganda is surrounded by fragile states like South Sudan.

"Cross border crime is a dangerous trend but we do what it takes to incorporate that in our strategies, working with sister security agencies," he said.

Yiga pledged to use team work, collaboration and a lot of understanding with sister security organs to ensure they followed leads on crime tips.

He called upon the media to collaborate with his office to ensure they achieve their goals.

Kasingye who served as director for six years said he had moved Interpol to another level in terms of improving Uganda's bilateral corporation with neighbours and reigned over issues of cross-border and trans-national crime. He said Uganda still has challenges in handling economic crimes.

"The biggest challenge is cybercrime and handling counterfeits and substandard goods," he said.

Kasingye said Uganda had not officially reported Kaweesi's murder to Interpol although Police had deployed at the border targeting some criminal suspects in the case.

"The Interpol system is different, you need to know the criminal and you are able to identify him, so that once information is entered in the system, he can be tracked with all details about that person and his photo, but we do not know yet the people who were involved in the killing of Kaweesi," he said.     

Kasingye however said Police would continue to deploy at the borders and use its intelligence to track the wrong doers.

 

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