KAMPALA – The Judiciary has said the violent rearrest of suspects in the murder of former Police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi at court will make the public lose confidence in courts of law.
Uniformed and plain-clothed security officers rounded up four of the suspects in the premises of the International Crimes Division on Wednesday afternoon, minutes after being granted bail by the Court Registrar, Esther Nasambu, on the orders of Justice Lydia Mugambe.
And now, the Judiciary senior communications officer, Mr Solomon Muyita, said the security action is a threat to the independence of the Judiciary.
“We are bothered by the actions of another arm of the state. We work for the same government and the DPP, they can always talk to us or present a charge sheet in court. They don’t have to wait until court has granted bail to suspects and then rearrest them in such a manner. It’s wrong to make people think they can never get out of jail. People will lose trust in the court procedures,” he said in part.
According to Mr Muyita, the security operatives later told Judiciary that the four were also re-arrested because they have pending charges. But he said that court can only handle cases to a certain point and he asked security to always send them charge sheets instead of embarrassing the court procedures.
The suspects are Yusuf Nyanzi, Jibril Kalyango, Joshua Kyambadde, Yusuf Mugerwa, Abdu Rashid Mbazira, Higenyi Aramaathan Noordin, Bruhan Balyejusa and Shafiq Kasujja.
The Army spokesperson, Brigadier Richard Karemire, says the suspects were picked up by Joint Security Forces and are locked up at a gazetted facility on allegations that they are peace violators.
“Our people deserve peace and security forces will do whatever they can within the laws established to ensure that,” said Karemire.
