Uganda: Police Full of Rogues, Says Gen. Kayihura

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The Monitor (Kampala)

8 August 2008
Posted to the web 8 August 2008

Chris Obore
Kampala

Police Chief Kale Kayihura said yesterday most police departments are infiltrated by rogue elements a day after a senior officer was arrested on suspicion of planning a botched robbery.

Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura told Daily Monitor that the arrest of Mr Wilson Isabirye, a senior superintendent of police, was proof that the Police Force is in need of a "clean-up" and that his efforts to reform the Force have been frustrated.

The inspector general of police said: "I had to disband the Mobile Police Patrol Unit and put in completely new people. They had become criminals waylaying lorries carrying charcoal instead of fighting crime. This is what I have been saying but I was crucified because I want a clean-up."

The Police chief claimed that when he called for the weeding-out of suspected rogue elements from the Force, a section of officers "attacked me that I am from the outside; that I don't know problems inside the Police." Gen. Kayihura said policemen at the Central Police Station in Kampala have, in the past, hired out guns to criminals but did not say whether the practice continues.

Mr Isabirye was arrested on Tuesday night with four other suspects near Mityana where, police said, they planned to rob a businessman of an undisclosed sum of money. Mr Isabirye said after the arrest that he'd been set up but police said his co-accused implicated him.

Mr David Magara, the commander of the Police Rapid Response Unit that captured the five suspects, said yesterday that he was receiving more information about the arrested officer. "I have got numerous calls from other police officers," Mr Magara said, "but we are now investigating backwards; we want to know his background."

Mr Magara said he was disappointed with police officers who claim they knew of Mr Isabirye's conduct but never blew the whistle on him. "Why have they been quiet? They knew it but allowed Police to groom a viper," he said.

According to Mr Magara, Mr Isabirye, who was still held at the RRU detention centre in Kireka yesterday, is likely to face charges of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery once investigations are complete. He faces up to life imprisonment if convicted on robbery charges.

The Director of Crime Intelligence in the Police Force, Mr Elly Womanya, said yesterday that the CID was processing Mr Isabirye's criminal file for onward transmission to the DPP. "I think he is in trouble," Mr Womanya said. "I think it's the end of his road in Police."

Gen. Kayihura said: "I don't want to prejudice the investigations but certainly he will be dismissed; I don't see anybody tolerating that. He is going to be prosecuted."

Mr Isabirye's arrest raises questions about the conduct of police officers and their possible collaboration with criminal gangs. The head of the Professional Standards Unit in the Force, Mr John Ndugutyse, told Daily Monitor yesterday that several complaints have been brought against some police officers.

"We have been receiving complaints against the Police from the public; some of them have been charged," Mr Ndugutyse said, without providing details.

Attention is also likely to shift to the findings of the Sebutinde Commission into the Police Force, which sat from May to November 1999. The Sebutinde's report said the police had been turned into a "Mafia-type" organisation incapable of investigating crime.

It recommended criminal investigations against 23 top police officers implicated in crime. At the time former police chiefs John Cossy Odomel and John Kisembo, along with former heads of department Chris Bakiza and Grace Turyagamanawe were being investigated for various crimes.

In June 2001, the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Brigadier Moses Ali, ordered the IGG to investigate the 23 top officers. All of them have either been dismissed or forced to retire for various reasons, including criminal neglect.

Asked whether the recommendations of the Sebutinde Report had been successfully implemented, Maj. Gen. Kayihura said yesterday: "We have done the restructuring and some individuals who were implicated were also handled."

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