{"id":27790,"date":"2016-08-17T03:14:15","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T03:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/african-union-soldiers-jailed-over-somali-fuel\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T03:14:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T03:14:12","slug":"african-union-soldiers-jailed-over-somali-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/african-union-soldiers-jailed-over-somali-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"African Union soldiers jailed over Somali fuel racket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Nine Ugandan soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Somalia have been jailed for running a fuel racket.}<\/p>\n<p>The African Union (AU) said they had been sentenced to between one year and three years by a Ugandan military court, which sat in Somalia.<\/p>\n<p>The officers, including two majors, were arrested in a sting operation in June.<\/p>\n<p>The AU mission is fighting alongside Somali government forces against al-Shabab Islamist militants.<\/p>\n<p>It was the first time a military court connected to the AU mission (Amisom) had sat in Somalia since the troops were deployed nine years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Correspondents say it was decided to do so as an attempt to show Somalia&#8217;s citizens that the Amisom force was being held to account.<\/p>\n<p>The nine were among 18 soldiers arraigned before the court for selling fuel belonging to Amisom to civilians in the capital, Mogadishu, an Amisom statement said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The prosecution has proved all the accusations of pursuing personal interest and endangering operational efficiency beyond reasonable doubt,&#8221; it quoted Uganda&#8217;s Brig Gen Dick Olum as saying.<\/p>\n<p>Three of the soldiers had also been &#8220;dismissed with disgrace from the army&#8221;, and would lose their benefits, it added.<\/p>\n<p>Uganda is the highest troop contributor to the 22,000-strong Amisom force.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the BBC also found that allowances paid to Amisom troops were being withheld because the European Union, which provides the funding, had accounting issues over a previous payment.<\/p>\n<p>The deployment allowance is much more than the often meagre salaries the soldiers receive from their governments.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-14302 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90803765_28400133523_5cbce40d5b_b.jpg\" alt=\"The court martial was held at the Amisom headquarters in Somalia&#039;s capital, Mogadishu\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Nine Ugandan soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Somalia have been jailed for running a fuel racket.} The African Union (AU) said they had been sentenced to between one year and three years by a Ugandan military court, which sat in Somalia. The officers, including two majors, were arrested in a sting operation in June. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27790"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27790"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}