Judiciary condemns rearrest of Kaweesi murder suspects

Judiciary has criticized the chaotic rearrest of former Police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi murder suspects on Wednesday afternoon following bail from court.

There was chaos at the International Crimes Division of the High Court in Kololo as security operatives re-arrested four suspects accused of murdering AIGP Andrew Kaweesi who had been granted bail.

https://nilepost.co.ug/2019/09/11/chaotic-scene-as-kaweesi-murder-suspects-are-re-arrested-after-release-on-bail/

Speaking about the incident, the senior communications officer at the Judiciary Solomon Muyita criticized the action saying that people will lose trust in courts and that the Judiciary is bothered by the actions of security.

"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.

Eight suspects in the murder of the former senior police officer are battling other charges related to terrorism, aggravated robbery and aiding terrorism. These were recently granted bail by Lady Justice Lydia Mugambe.

On Wednesday 11, September, the suspects returned for their release orders to be signed and consequently four of them were asked to return home whereas the rest were taken back to prison because they have other charges.

Jibril Kalyango, Yusuf Mugerwa, Joshua Kyambadde and Siraje Nyanzi were set free. However, their lawyers sensed danger after plain clothed security operatives surrounded court.

The lawyers then brought a vehicle, Toyota Noah in which the four accused who had been released on bail were to use out of fear of re-arrest.

The lawyers also got another Toyota Prado TX that was driven to hoodwink the security operatives but this didn't yield any results as the operatives in a private van with private number plates blocked the exit of the court premises and forcefully re-arrested the suspects. The lawyers car was deformed in the process.

According to Muyita, the security operatives later told Judiciary that the four were also re-arrested because they have pending charges. Muyita 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.