By MONITOR

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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has pardoned Red Pepper directors and its senior editors and ordered for the reopening of the independent newspaper that has been under a police siege for two months.

The Red Pepper officials were facing treason charges after publishing a story that was reported to have accused the Ugandan government of plotting to overthrow Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

“After a meeting with President Museveni at State House Entebbe on Tuesday night, he pardoned the company directors and its senior editors and promised to immediately order the police to vacate Pepper HQ at Namanve," said Red Pepper in a statement.

The newspaper will resume publishing "soon", the company said citing a formal process to reopen it is underway after two months of police.

Mr Museveni is said to have warned the directors and editors against "being reckless and become more professional in the course of their reporting."

He also asked his staff to give each of the Red Pepper officials a copy of his revised autobiography Sowing the Mustard Seed.

The officials were also given a booklet with a lecture he gave during the marking of the Nelson Mandela’s Day at Makerere University, to sharpen their ideological awareness.

The directors, according to the statement, pledged to the president and the nation, a more transformed and professional publication going forward.

On November 21 last year, Uganda police raided the Red Pepper headquarters, confiscated computers and arrested eight people who included four directors and four editors.

The eight were charged with several offences including publication of information prejudicial to security, libel and offensive communication.

They had been released on bail of Ush20 million ($5,600).

Prosecutors argued that the newspaper was intended to defame and subjected the President, his brother Gen Salim Saleh and Security minister Lt-Gen Henry Tumukunde to ridicule, contempt and hatred by portraying them as planning to overthrow President Kagame.