Journalist who went missing in October charged with treason silently, detained in Luzira

The Uganda Prisons service has said it is holding Rev Isaac Bakka, a journalist who went missing in October, last year. Bakka was attached to, Bornfree Technologies Network (BTN Television), a television broadcaster based in Arua, West Nile.

The Spokesperson of Uganda Prisons Service Frank Baine said they are holding the journalist on charges of treason and misprision of treason. According to Baine, the journalist was received February 14 but declined to divulge details on the matter saying he needed time to crosscheck with authorities in upper prison.

"He is admitted as Rev. Captain at Upper prison in Luzira, but they just brought him recently," Baine said.

Misprision of treason is an offence, committed where someone conceals knowledge of the mission of any treason against the state. It attracts a life sentence upon conviction.

Clause 25 of the penal code act stipulates that any person who knowing that any person intends to commit treason does not give information thereof with all reasonable dispatch to the Minister, an administrative officer, a magistrate or an officer in charge of a police station, or use all reasonable endeavors to prevent the commission of the offence of treason commits the offence of misprision of treason and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

Bakka's whereabouts were disclosed a day after Kaps Hassan Fungaroo the Obongi County MP tasked government to explain the whereabouts the journalist who was reported missing in October. He had reportedly been kidnapped by unknown persons in Mukono.

It also happens just days after the kidnap of another Journalist, Charles Etukuri of the New Vision.

The investigative journalist was reportedly kidnapped on Tuesday afternoon by five men in a Double Cabin vehicle Registration number UAH 038A, outside the New Vision offices in Industrial area. Some of his captors were reported to be dressed in military fatigue.

New Vision supposes that Etukuri could have been abducted in connection to a series of investigative stories that he recently worked on. His last story was about the death of an investor, a Finnish national who died at Pearl of Africa Hotel in Kampala. The story implicated some operatives attached to the Internal Security Organisation-ISO in the death of the Finnish tycoon is Teräsvuori Juha.

Teräsvuori had travelled to Uganda with the Finnish politician Suvi Linden to meet the head of Internal Security Organization Col. Fred Bagyenda. The story stated that although security agencies claimed that deceased died after inhaling drugs, Linden had told Saturday Vision that the deceased was not taking drugs.

In the same article, it was reported that Teräsvuori died a day after he was arrested in an operation led by the Internal Security Organization officers Joel Agaba in Entebbe on Monday, February 5, 2008. He was arrested on accusations that he had travelled into the country on a forged clearance letter by Bagyenda and later set free. He died a day later.

His peers suspect that the story could have annoyed members of the Internal Security Organisation