Extradition of Jamil Mukulu, the wanted international terrorist and leader of eastern Congo-based rebel group Allied Democratic Forces, appears to have become hostage to a complex web of international law and geopolitical interests.

DNA tests have confirmed that the fugitive, who was arrested in Tanzania last month, is the wanted ADF leader, but it is not clear if Mr Mukulu will be handed over to Uganda soon.

A security source told The EastAfrican that Mukulu —born 1964 in Uganda — was arrested over immigration issues when he was travelling on a forged Tanzanian passport, and that the rebel leader has previously assumed multiple nationalities and used different passports.

This, according to international law expert and legislator Krispus Ayena, would be a legal minefield in case Mr Mukulu was extradited to Uganda and another country claimed him as its legitimate citizen.

“There is controversy over his nationality. In a situation like this, the easiest thing to do is to hand him over to a neutral authority,” he said.

Because of this, Uganda is treading carefully, anxious not to breach international legal processes. The official position of the police remains that Mr Mukulu is before a court in Tanzania awaiting clearance to be extradited to Kampala, “according to international law procedures.”

Police spokesman Fred Enanga said in submitting to international extradition laws, Kampala is trying to avoid the mistakes made after the 2010 bombings in Kampala, when terrorist suspects were picked up from Kenya and taken to Uganda in a counterterrorism operation. “Do you know how much outrage that generated in Kenya? We don’t want to go down that path again,” he said.

The Tanzanian and Ugandan Ministries of Foreign Affairs have now assumed the lead role in the extradition process, while security agencies remain in the background working on operational matters, police sources indicated.

From the mid-1990s, when ADF was formed, Mr Mukulu has been at the helm of the Islamist rebel force; initially based in western Uganda in the early years before it was driven by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces into Congo, from where it made deadly incursions into Uganda. The biggest attack was in 1998 when the rebel force burnt to death 80 students in their dormitory at Kichwamba Technical College.

For years, ADF could retreat to its safe haven in the eastern Congo jungles, and became one of the many “negative forces” in the vast Congolese territory, but also maintained contact inside Uganda.

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A security dossier on recent assassinations of Muslim clerics in Uganda documents the killings as a handiwork of ADF. Apparently, the slain clerics, who were Shia, were opposed to the activities and violent fundamentalist of jihadist Salafist Muslims, to which Mr Mukulu subscribes.

A security dossier reveals that police chief General Kale Kayihura had asked assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Joan Kagezi to issue an international arrest warrant for Mr Mukulu over the series of assassinations of Muslim clerics. Gen Kayihura told The EastAfrican in an earlier interview that there was intelligence information that Mr Mukulu was a senior official of the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation.

The United States is by far the biggest victim of Al Qaeda terrorist acts — in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the September 11, 2001 attacks during which over 3,000 people were killed in multiple attacks on US territory.

“While the embassy is pleased to see that alleged ADF leader Jamil Mukulu is in custody and that plans are being made to see that he faces justice,” said US embassy spokesman Daniel Travis, “his extradition is a bilateral issue between the governments of Tanzania and Uganda.”