The situation at Makindye Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court\u00a0turned violent this afternoon as supporters of the Police Chief (IGP)Gen. Kale Kayihura resorted to throwing stones at the lawyers for the complainants.<\/p>\n
Abudallah Kiwanuka, one of the lawyers was stoned, while the lead counsel and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago was holed up inside the magistrates chambers\u00a0but was later freed after police\u00a0tried to get the lawyers to safety one at a time.<\/p>\n
The IGP and seven of his commanders were to appear before court this morning but nver showed up and no reason was given to court.<\/p>\n
Relatedly,\u00a0the three youth who filed the petition in court last month to have Gen.Kayihura and his officers summoned for alleged torture have also not appeared. The trio had initially claimed to be part of the group of opposition Forum For Democratic Change supporters who were clobbered by police officers as they celebrated the release from jail of former presidential candidate Dr. Kiiza Besigye.<\/p>\n
Yesterday the three; Andrew Sebitosi, Rodgers Ddiba and Joseph Kaddu called a press conference held at Makerere University in which they accused some high ranking government officials of bribing them to give false testimony against Kayihura in court.<\/p>\n
However, they\u00a0were\u00a0represented by a team of over ten lawyers who informed court that they had reliable information that their clients were under immense pressure\u00a0and lived in intimidation from the public.<\/p>\n
At exactly 10:00am,\u00a0Chief Magistrate Richard Mafabi entered court and the case file of Uganda Vs Gen Kayihura and 7 others was read but no accused person took to the dock, despite objections by prosecution.<\/p>\n
Instead, the magistrate overruled the prosecution’s objection and allowed the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) represented by Happiness Ainebyona\u00a0time to make a formal application requesting to take over proceedings of this case.<\/p>\n
The lawyers had asked court to reject the DPP’s request which had been presented\u00a0in\u00a0a letter dated 9th<\/sup> August, 2016 saying the law requires\u00a0the DPP to either make an oral or formal application to court for purposes of taking over private prosecutions.<\/p>\n The magistrate said the\u00a0constitution mandates\u00a0the DPP to take over criminal prosecutions in this country.<\/p>\n The lawyers had also cited\u00a0fears that once the DPP\u00a0takes over, he\u00a0will order police to investigate the alleged torture incidences yet police cannot investigate itself.<\/p>\n The case has been adjourned to the 29th \/August for court to hear and determine whether the DPP should take over these proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Outside the court premises,\u00a0Gen. Kayihura\u2019s supporters held placards and kept chanting and praising him in protest of his court appearance.<\/p>\n Story By<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The situation at Makindye Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court\u00a0turned violent this afternoon as supporters of the Police Chief (IGP)Gen. Kale Kayihura resorted to throwing stones at the lawyers for the complainants. Abudallah Kiwanuka, one of the lawyers was stoned, while the lead counsel and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago was holed up inside the magistrates chambers\u00a0but was later freed after police\u00a0tried to get the lawyers to safety one at a time. The IGP and seven of his commanders were to appear before court this morning but nver showed up and no reason was given to court. Relatedly,\u00a0the three youth who filed the petition in court last month to have Gen.Kayihura and his officers summoned for alleged torture have also not appeared. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}