Maverick Police officer and former Buyende DPC ASP Muhammad Kirumira has officially appealed against the sentences of demotion and reprimand by the police disciplinary court.
Two weeks ago, the police disciplinary court sitting at Naguru convicted Kirumira of unnecessary exercise of authority when he forcefully ordered one Kamada Kayizzi to vacate his home while still serving as the OC in charge of Nansana police station and the arrest of a Flying Squad operative before parading him to the media.
The court subsequently sentenced him to demotion and a severe reprimand.
In his appeal dated April 23, Kirumira contends that the court ignored his defence submissions on the count of parading a Flying Squad operative, a thing he says was unconstitutional and unfair.
“The court also ignored my request to have some witnesses summoned plus some books and police file for the matter hence arriving at a wrong decision that culminated into a wrongful conviction on grounds of erroneous findings,”Kirumira says in his appeal.
Quoting the police act,Kirumira says a police officer has powers to arrest someone in a bid to prevent crime adding that no officer is stopped from parading suspects in the media.
He argues that the appellant court should interest itself in the testimonies and the period of five years that was taken to have the matter brought up for hearing which he says shows they were hidden interests.
“The allegations against myself occurred in 2014 while I was Assistant Inspector of Police but the police management ignored them on grounds of being framed up by criminals to sabotage police operations through taking down individual hardworking officers.”
He adds, “I was hence promoted due to good conduct and discipline on acceleration after attending a six months course at the Non Commissioned Officers Academy in Jinja.”
Kirumira questions the allegations of being a rogue officer that subsequently led to his conviction many years later after being deployed to serve in three different districts as DPC but the same had never been brought up.
Challenges reprimand
Kirumira was also sentenced to a reprimand by the police disciplinary court for unnecessary exercise of authority when he forcefully ordered one Kamada Kayizzi to vacate his home while still serving as the OC in charge of Nansana police station.
In his appeal, the maverick officer says the disciplinary court relied on evidence of only a single witness identified as Kamada Kayizzi who was not the principle witness adding that other witnesses were not produced despite being mentioned in the charge sheet.
“The prosecution side did not mention the true particulars of the said wife to Kayizzi as mentioned on the charge sheet hence lacking significant ground to ascertain the charge,”Kirumura says in his appeal.
“They convicted me on grounds of evicting the complainant whereas in the judgment, Kayizzi testified that he voluntarily shifted to another area in a period of two months.”
Kirumira argues that the court refused to consider his defence submissions yet it (court) had been notified that the prosecution did not produce the communication details between him and the complainant as had earlier been indicated.
He notes that the court relied on his conduct while challenging the unfair trial to prove the allegations brought against him in 2014 case yet the two are not related in any way.
“I conclude that the court based itself on erroneous findings not backed by any evidence to support the verdict of conviction as per the charge.I pray that the conviction be overturned and the sentence be quashed, be declared not guilty and acquitted of the same,”Kirumira says in his appeal copied to the Inspector General of Police, Director Human Resource and the Director Legal affairs in the police force.