James Akena, a Photojournalist with Reuters, who was clobbered by security personnel while covering protests against the arrest of Kyadondo East legislator Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine, is now fully confined to the wheelchair.
Akena was spotted in a wheel chair a day ago, but he finally revealed the same in a post on social media.
“Finally, their brutality last August lands me in a wheelchair,” he captioned the pictures of him in a health facility being wheeled.
Akena was captured on camera being battered by security personnel in Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF) uniform, in downtown Kampala on August 20, 2018, while covering city protests.
The video and photos of Akena's battering while kneeling on his knees went viral on social media - with the government, first dismissing the photos as "fake" and later saying the soldiers in the footage appeared to be from West Africa and not Ugandan soldiers.
President Yoweri Museveni, later on, said that when he sought an explanation from the army, he was told that Akena had been beaten because the soldiers mistook him to be a camera thief because he couldn't easily be identified as a journalist.
Akena has since sued the government seeking Shs100m in compensations. In his application, Akena says that he was beaten by soldiers on duty as a photojournalist. Akena a group of soldiers descended on him while on duty and battered him, took his camera and Shs3.9m he had in on him in cash.
