Africa-Press – Uganda. Ten days since the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Maj Gen Paul Lokech, issued a 48-hour ultimatum to two directorates to release people arrested by security men, none of his instructions has been implemented.
To date, people arrested by security men driving in Toyota HiAce vans commonly known as Drones, have not been released or accessed by their lawyers and families.
“I have instructed our people– director of CID (Grace Akullo) and director of Crime Intelligence (Brig Christopher Sserunjogi Ddamulira)– to give me a list of anybody who has been arrested and anybody who is in the cells of our security agencies. And I have also instructed that those people who have been arrested, if they feel that they were a threat to security, must be brought before courts of law and this must be done within 48 hours as stipulated by our regulations,” Maj Gen Lokech ordered on February 1 at police headquarters.
However, in a statement yesterday, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said the Joint Task Force was reviewing the operation against “perpetrators and instigators of violence.”“The joint leadership of the security agencies is reviewing the ongoing counter-terror operations, and also ordered for thorough investigations by the Directorate of CID into all forms of torture that could have arisen during these operations,” Mr Enanga said. He did not elaborate or explain why Gen Lokech’s orders were not implemented.
Several people were kidnapped by security men in police vehicles commonly known as “drones” ahead of the elections and after the violent protests that occurred across the country on November 18 and 19 last year. Many of them are still missing.Some of those who were released said they were tortured and later dumped in isolated areas in the night.
Mr Enanga said: “Torture is neither a policy nor a rule of engagement by the joint security agencies, and, therefore, as we await outcome of the investigations by CID, we would like to assure the public that any security person found to have involved themselves or anybody under their command in any acts of torture shall definitely be held accountable.”
Security sources said since the investigations, verbal orders have been given from their police commanders to stop tracking, by CCTV cameras, the vehicles used by the security personnel who arrested the missing people.The officers were also ordered not to register kidnap complaints from relatives of the victims at the different police stations, the sources said.
Police officers at different divisions have been registering complaints of kidnap and then use the CCTV footage to establish the vehicles that were used in the crime. Most of the vehicles were tracked moving to and from Kasenyi in Entebbe, Wakiso District. Kasenyi has an army training base.Mr Enanga refused to comment about the verbal orders to stop tracking the perpetrators’ vehicles.
Background
Former national boxing captain Isaac Ssenyange, alias Mando Zebra, was gunned down at his home at night as he allegedly fled armed security men who came to his residence in Bwaise, a Kampala suburb, on December 30.
President Museveni later confirmed that Ssenyange had been killed by security personnel and said he had ordered an investigation into the murder. Robert Mukasa, aka Soldier Boy, the manager of Ssenyange’s boxing club, was also arrested in the same raid, but was released later after he had been tortured.
Police haven’t been able to talk to the suspects or examine the firearms of the security personnel that shot Ssenyange.
