Category: Justice

{The source said two senior army officers initially acquitted were also given life terms.}

Burundi’s Supreme Court on Monday slapped life sentences on 21 army officers involved in a supposed coup plot in May last year.

The court had in January given 30-year jail terms to nine officers and sentenced eight other soldiers to five years while acquitting seven others.

But prosecutors appealed the initial sentence. The decision is however not binding as it can be appealed once more.

“Twenty-one officers including the main accused like General Cyrille Ndayirukiye were sentenced to life,” a judicial source said, speaking in the central city of Gitega.

The source said two senior army officers initially acquitted were also given life terms.

Prosecutors had said in January that they wanted all jailed for life and the seven acquitted to face a re-trial.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Burundi’s capital on Monday vowed to crush “terrorists” blamed for a spate of weekend grenade attacks that left three people dead and about 20 injured.

Hundreds have been killed and a quarter of a million people have fled Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial decision April 2015 to run for a third term, a vote he won amid opposition boycotts in July.

Anti-government protests were brutally quashed and killings and attacks have become a regular feature in the troubled country as a political crisis shows no sign of abating.

Bujumbura mayor Freddy Mbonimpa told AFP that three people had died in the capital since Friday in “terrorist acts targeting peaceful citizens.”

“These terrorists are trying to instil panic… we are in the process of breaking up these terrorist groups with the help of the local population,” he said.

{JSC declined to form a tribunal to investigate their conduct.
}
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has recommended three Supreme Court judges be reprimanded for misconduct.

However, the JSC declined to form a tribunal to investigate their conduct saying the misconduct did not meet the threshold to warrant the formation of a panel.

In a letter, JSC Secretary Ms Anne Amadi said the Commission had considered the petition dated October 9, 2015 filed by lawyer Apollo Mboya, as well as the response by the accused Supreme Court judges.

The finding established that the conduct by Supreme Court judges Mohammed Ibrahim, Jackton Ojwang and Njoki Ndung’u to go on strike last year was “indeed unbecoming of them as judges of the Supreme Court and amounted to misconduct”.

“JSC however determined that the said misconduct did not meet the requisite threshold to warrant a recommendation for the appointment of a tribunal for their removal as provided in the Constitution,” read the communication issued Monday.

In the petition, lawyer Mboya argued that the decision by the three judges to withdraw their services to the people of Kenya by “imposing a moratorium on all the judicial operations” in a letter dated September 24, 2015 was a misconduct and they should therefore be removed.

“These are state officers and cannot withdraw their services to members of the public,” argued lawyer Mboya.

He had also filed another petition against Deputy Chief Justice Kalpana Rawal and Supreme Court Judge Philip Tunoi for sitting in a case that touched on retirement of judges, when they too were active litigants challenging their retirement age.

Mrs Amadi on Monday assured lawyer Mboya that the petition he filed against Justice Rawal and Justice Tunoi is still under the JSC’s consideration and the outcome shall be communicated in due course.

{The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has given Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo up to September 28 to file written pleadings on their agreement of the reparations in the case concerning armed activities on DR Congo territory by the former in 1998.}

The deadline for filing papers on the ongoing reparation disagreement was yesterday April 28.

However, court by an order dated April 11 “extended to September 28, 2016 the time-limit for the filing” by DRC, of a memorial on the reparations which it considers to be owed to it by Uganda, and for the filing, by Uganda, of a memorial on the reparations which it considers to be owed by DRC.

The DRC sued Uganda at the Hague-based court in 1999 over acts of armed aggression that violated the UN Charter and the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, the predecessor of the African Union.

Uganda, however, lost the case in 2005, when its legal team erred by submitting to the court as its evidence, a report of a commission of inquiry chaired by Justice David Porter, which had implicated senior government officials.

The court told the two governments to go out and negotiate on the amount of reparation, a process which has since dragged.
In the latest statement the court noted that: “The subsequent procedure has been reserved for further decision. The decision to extend the time-limit was made taking account of the views of the parties.”

“In its order, the court indicates that, by a letter dated March 31, 2016 and received in the registry on the same day, the Congolese minister of Justice and Human Rights and Keeper of the Seals asked the court, for the reasons given in that letter, for an additional time-limit of 10 months for the filing of his government’s memorial.”

{The United Nations human rights chief today condemned the increasing number of attacks against high-level officials in Burundi and called for proper investigations to be carried out.}

These attacks include the assassination of Brigadier General Athanase Kararuza and his wife on Monday, and the apparent assassination attempt against the Minister of Human Rights, Social Affairs and Gender, Martin Nivyabandi, on Sunday.

“I strongly condemn these attacks,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad, in a press release.

“They must be properly investigated and the killers must be arrested and brought before the law. Some 31 people have been killed in attacks so far in April, compared to a total of nine people in the last month. The great majority of these attacks were carried out by unidentified armed men. I fear that the increasing number of targeted assassinations will inevitably exacerbate the already extremely dangerous spiral of violence and unrest in Burundi,” he warned.

The High Commissioner also strongly encouraged all parties to seize the opportunity of the upcoming East African Community-led Burundian talks in Arusha to engage in a meaningful dialogue, with the aim of improving the human rights situation and finding a lasting solution to the ongoing political crisis.

It has been one year since the crisis in the country began; according to the UN, to date more than 400 people have been killed and almost 260,000 people have fled the country.

{A Senior Superintendent of Police yesterday told Kasangati Magistrates Court that former FDC presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye defied police orders regarding which routes to use in order to access his party headquarters in Najjanakumbi without passing through the busy central district of Kampala.}

The officer, Mr David Ulama of the Field Force Unit, told court presided over by Grade One Magistrate Fredy Ashoka Egesa that on April 5 while he was on deployment with a platoon of 36 officers at Kalerwe roundabout in Kampala at around 9am, Dr Besigye came in his car Toyota TX UAW 616W and that he was proceeding to the city centre.

The 46-year old prosecution witness further told court that Dr Besigye had a procession and that he was standing atop the sun roof of his car with several boda boda following him before describing the atmosphere as being ‘chaotic’.

The police officer told court that he used the Bwaise roundabout along the Northern Bypass to drive towards Mulago, Kubbiri where he ordered another officer to block Besigye from proceeding to the Central Business District via Wandegeya.

The witness told court that it was dangerous to allow Dr Besigye to go through the busy city as his movement could lead to chaos in places like Kisekka, St Balikuddembe and Mini Price in the city centre .

He told court that Besigye then proceeded up to Mulago roundabout where the Wandegeya DPC ordered him to use Yusuf Lule road to Najjanankumbi where he was going but was admant.

“In response, Dr Besigye asked him (DPC) whether he knew where he was heading. His driver then parked in the middle of the road and as this was going on, his supporters were pelting stones at police,” Mr Ulama told court.

Prosecution alleges that Dr Besigye on April 5, defied orders of the Wandegeya DPC Bamuzibire when he refused to use Yusuf Lule road to the party headquarters but insisted on going via Wandegeya and the city centre.

During cross-examination that was led by Fredrick Mpanga, the police officer was asked whether it is one’s right not to obey unlawful orders and in response, he admitted that there is no law that bars anyone to move to any place in this country apart from the army barracks.

Further in the cross-examination, the witness who had earlier told court that Dr Besigye was flashing the party’s V- sign which was wrong as it was exciting the populace, however, changed his statement saying he would not arrest him for mere flashing the V-sign.

Magistrate Egesa then adjourned the hearing of the case to May 17 so that the prosecution brings more witnesses to testify against a top FDC leader.

{{Background}}

The case arose shortly after the Inspector General of Police Gen Kale Kayihura ordered his men to leave Dr Besigye’s Kasangati residence after camping there for more than 40 days to restrict his movements following his defiance words after he lost the February 18 polls to incumbent President Museveni. Dr Besigye was arrested by the police on his first day out near Mulago Roundabout on grounds that he led a procession which was not cleared by the police. He was then whisked to Naggalama police station and released in the late hours of the night.