Court extends summons against Zaake's suspected tormentors

COURT|CRIME|TORTURE 

MITYANA - The Mityana Chief Magistrates' Court has extended criminal summons against six senior police officers accused of torturing the Mityana district Member of Parliament, Francis Zaake.

Grade one Magistrate, Juliet Kimono, extended the summons and adjourned the case on grounds that the trial Magistrate meant to handle the case was indisposed.

"The Chief Magistrate meant to handle this case is indisposed, I therefore adjourn the case to September 2, 2020. Criminal summons are hereby extended to all the six accused," Kimono ruled.

Among the accused is Elly Womanya, the commandant of the Kireka-based Special Investigations Division, Isaac Oketcho, Bob Kagarura, the Wamala Regional Police Commander, Musa Walugembe, Hamdan Twesigye and Alex Mwine.

The charge

Prosecution alleges that between April 20 and April 22, 2020, the accused inflicted severe physical and mental pain on Zaake contrary to Sections 2 and 4 of the Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act, 2012.

In his affidavit in a civil suit he filed before the High Court in Kampala, the legislator said the mentioned officers fastened a rope and chain onto metallic seats above him on a patrol vehicle and suspended his body above the metallic floor as he dangled below the seats.

"After suspending me below the police trucks behind seats, the officers drove me at a very high speed. Whenever we hit humps or potholes, my body would swing violently and hit the sides of the metallic surroundings. I eventually became numb in my legs and hands as a result of the unbearable pain," Zaake said.

The charge sheet indicates the officers carried out the alleged torture through systematic beatings, slapping, flogging, kicking and punching on different parts of the body on top of keeping him incommunicado in their cells.

The charge sheet further alleges that while arresting and transferring the legislator from his home in Mityana to Mityana Police Station and later Special Investigations Division, he was subjected to spraying with pepper, slapping, beating, kicking and punches.

Background

Distributing of Covid-19 relief food, which was contrary to the presidential directive that banned the same for fear of spreading the deadly coronavirus led to Zaake's arrest from his home at Buswabulongo in Mityana municipality.

Later detained at the Special Investigations Division headquarters in Kireka, therefore taking the said police officers to court, on allegations that they tortured him.