Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{A police officer attached to VIP Protection Unit has killed himself after shooting his wife dead.}

Police say Godfrey Sabiti, a resident of Nsambya barracks killed his wife before turning the same gun at himself after he allegedly tested HIV positive.

“We have recovered the test results of HIV for the wife, Akol and the children except for the man. These reads negative. We suspect that the man must have found himself positive and took a wrong decision. He planned it since he took all the family members for HIV test on January 24, 2017,” said Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesman, Paul Kangave.

This is the second officer to kill himself in just two months period.
In December last year, Patrick Oloya, a Field Force Unit (FFU) personnel attached to Pader Central Police station ended his life after locking himself inside his uni-port house at the Police barracks.

Suspected Al-Shabaab militants have attacked an Administration Police camp in Mandera.

Over 20 gunmen are said to have raided the camp in Arabia at 1.25am on Thursday.

Some 10 officers are believed to have been in the camp when the attack happened but Lafey Deputy County Commissioner Eric Oronyi could not give the exact number.

“We have lost no officer but one student was hit by a stray bullet during the incident from their family house,” he said.

{{BVR KIT STOLEN}}

Speaking to the Nation on phone, Mr Oronyi said the attackers made away with a police vehicle, motorcycle, three rifles, bullets and four voter registration kits belonging to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

“Preliminary information is showing they destroyed a Safaricom mast before attacking the AP camp and made away with a Toyota Land Cruiser belonging to police,” Mr Oronyi said.

“The police officers took cover and the attackers made away with their personal belongings, including clothes and other things the officers left behind,” he said, adding that the militants set alight mattresses to scare away the officers.

Two of the guns were assigned to National Police Reservists while one belonged to an AP officer.

COMMUNICATION CUTOFF

The gunmen vandalised a Safaricom mast in Khoror Farar and mobile communication has been cut off in the area.

Reinforcement from Kenya Defence Forces in Mandera was dispatched to the area on Thursday morning.

The injured student was admitted to Mandera County Referral Hospital in critical condition after a bullet went through his head.

KULBIYOW ATTACK

The county chief said the situation was still being assessed by security agents on the ground.

“We have a contingent of police on the ground together with military and we shall be getting more information once they reach to an area with network,” he said.

The attack came days after Inspector-General of police Joseph Boinnet together with his key lieutenants visited officers in camps in the area.

It also happened barely a week after Al-Shabaab killed nine Kenyan soldiers in camp in Kulbiyow, Lower Jubba, Somalia, some 18 kilometres from the Kenyan border.

100 TROOPS

The numbers of the soldiers killed in the attack is, however, disputed, with Al-Shabaab putting it at over 60.

On the dawn of January 15, 2016, Kenya also lost over 100 troops when Al-Shabaab overran a KDF camp in El-Adde, Somalia.

Kenyan soldiers are fighting the rag-tag militia under the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) that has lost hundreds of soldiers in camp attacks.

Amisom is a 22,000-strong force comprising soldiers from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

{Determined to guarantee access to justice and take the services closer to the people, the judiciary plans minor claim and mobile courts in the country, the acting Chief Justice (CJ), Professor Ibrahim Juma, said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.}

Closing the law week exhibitions at Mnazi Mmoja grounds in the city, Professor Juma explained that the strategy is crucial in enabling more people to get justice on time and easing dispensation of justice to citizens in rural and other remote areas. “Statistics show that there are 3,957 wards in the country, with each requiring at least one primary court.

But, there are only 976 courts, implying that we can hardly reach all people in need of justice,” said Professor Juma, describing the establishment of the minor claim and mobile courts as inevitable.

He said neighbouring countries like Kenya and Uganda have already started adopting the system, assuring that the mobile courts will take off by next year to address one of the critical challenges that the judiciary has learnt during the weeklong exhibitions.

The CJ described the exhibitions as successful, with hundreds of citizens getting the opportunity to ask questions on various judicial issues, including the opening of cases, procedures relating to inheritance cases, bail applications, appeal procedures, matrimonial disputes and provision of legal aids.

He cited complaints by many people, especially on abusive language by court clerks, corruption practices among court officials and adjournment of cases beyond the required time, promising to work on the complaints effectively and timely.

Earlier, the Principal Judge Ferdinand Wambari told the gathering that over 3,000 ‘wananchi’ attended the exhibitions, with their major complaints centred on delays in provision of judgment copies to litigants, promising that the problem would be addressed soon.

“We understand the challenges of inadequate working tools but to start with, we have decided to provide 58 laptop computers which would be distributed to magistrates from the primary courts to the resident magistrate’s courts,” he said.

The working tools, he said, will reduce the burden on magistrates who had to handwrite case proceedings and use them to compose judgments by themselves instead of giving the work to typewriters.

{Added uncertainty over negotiations to end country’s year-long political crisis.}

Etienne Tshisekedi, leader of the opposition in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a critical figure in ongoing negotiations to end the country’s year-long political crisis, has died aged 84.

Bruno Tshibala, the deputy secretary-general of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party, said that the veteran politician had died on Wednesday afternoon in Brussels, where he had been undergoing medical treatment for the past week.

Tension rose quickly in Kinshasa on Wednesday night, the DRC capital, after news of Tshisekedi’s death broke. Dozens of people gathered outside the dead leader’s home but they were quickly dispersed by police firing tear gas.

Local media quoted officers as saying that the crowd had become “uncontrollable” but people at the scene denied this.

Tshisekedi’s death leaves the opposition without a popular champion, adding to the already considerable uncertainty over the future of the sprawling, resource-rich central African country, analysts said. The president, Joseph Kabila, is clinging to power despite his term in office ending last December.

Tshisekedi held several government positions in the 1960s and 70s during the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko before falling out with the leader and forming the UDPS in 1982. He was one of the few politicians who stood up to Mobutu and was imprisoned as a result.

Laurent Kabila, who toppled Mobutu in 1997, also jailed Tshisekedi on several occasions.

This did not deter the trained lawyer and he also led the opposition to Joseph Kabila, who took power in 2001 after his father was assassinated. When Joseph Kabila refused to step down in December last year, Tshisekedi initially called for nationwide protests.

But after several dozen people died in anti-Kabila demonstrations, Tshisekedi struck a deal with the ruling coalition that Mr Kabila could stay in office for another year until elections but that the opposition would nominate the prime minister of an interim unity government.

Tshisekedi, who came runner-up to Mr Kabila in the 2011 presidential election, had been expected to lead the body overseeing the implementation of this accord.

Hans Hoebeke, a DRC analyst for the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, said that the country’s “murky waters have become more so”.

“There is a possibility of protests and emotional reaction, potentially violent,” he said. “No one has the popular legitimacy to take over and at this stage it could further destabilise the party and the opposition.”

The opposition had nominated Tshisekedi’s son, Felix Tshisekedi, as prime minister of the new government but Mr Kabila had yet to approve this.

Mr Hoebeke said it was unclear now what would happen to the negotiations to appoint a new government. These talks had effectively stalled in the past fortnight, hurting the opposition’s credibility as much as Mr Kabila’s.

{124 Burundians from different jails of the Democratic Republic of Congo-DRC have been handed over to Burundian authorities this Tuesday 31 January 2017. The “repatriation” was voluntary, says Marcelin Luhoyo Tchichambo, Governor of South Kivu bordering Burundi.}

There were crowds of Burundians and Congolese at the Burundi-Congo frontier in Gatumba locality. Many of them were soldiers, police officers as well as journalists from different media awaiting Burundian youths to be handed over to Burundi officials.

From DRC, the young boys wearing dirty clothes, some barefoot, were brought to the frontier by a big truck surrounded by Congolese armed forces.

From the Congolese side, the youths were grouped into lines of between 6 and 20 persons. After the registration by Burundian police officers on the Burundian side, they got on Burundi police trucks.

Tchichambo Governor of South Kivu, a DRC province bordering Burundi, said those Burundian youths were found in Congolese streets without any identification and were imprisoned. One of them said anonymously that he was in a refugee camp and had gone to search for food. He was arrested accused of being a rebel before being incarcerated.

“Among those detainees who were at the frontier, 124 have been handed over to the Burundian authorities, 35 have refused to be forcibly repatriated for fear of being killed once in Burundi. Some 18 have been identified as Rwandese and will be handed over to Rwandan authorities. Twelve of them were recognized by HCR and the National Commission for Refugees in Congo- CNR and then they will be repatriated in case they need to. Two others are sick and stay in Uvira hospital in DRC until they recover”, said Tchichambo.

United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC-MONUSCO and UNHCR were there. One of MONUSCO members who were present said they wanted to make sure the human rights are respected.

Aimée Laurentine Kanyana, Burundi Justice Minister said it is a good act by Congolese government to bring the refugees. “We thanked the repatriated for their will to come back to their country. They set an example to those who are still in exile”, she said, promising that they are going to do their best to ensure their security.

According to Kanyana, the young “repatriated” would be some of the youths who have been taken abroad to be recruited by armed groups in the last two years, following numerous promises. “They have decided to return home because they have realized they have been manipulated into lies”, she said.

«This was not the matter of justice. If it were, it would be dealt with by prosecutors”, said Dieudonné Bashirahishize, one of Burundi’s lawyers.

The Governor of South Kivu province said there are other 2000 Burundians in Congolese refugee camps.