By JONATHAN KAMOGA

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In the war against terrorism, security forces in Uganda have killed at least five people and there have been enforced disappearances of other suspects since last month’s twin bombings in Kampala that killed three.

President Yoweri Museveni too has revived calls to deny bail to suspected capital offenders for at least 180 days or until trial commencement. Capital offences include murder, rape, aggravated defilement, robbery, kidnapping with intent to murder, terrorism and treason.

On September 25, President Museveni termed bail for capital offenders abominable and promised to fight it.

“For somebody to kill a person and you give them bail is provocation,” the President said. “It is abominable. I would like us to cure this ideological disagreement. This bail, what is the hurry? Who are you trying to please? Who said bail is a right? We are going to work on this. I am going to summon the NRM (National Resistance Movement) caucus and if necessary, we put it to a referendum. With this provocation, people will take the law into their own hand.”

Fear of abuse

The ruling NRM parliamentary caucus, is reportedly against the President’s proposal to push for the removal of the constitutional right to bail for people charged with certain crimes. The legislators contend that the law may be abused to hold innocent people in perpetuity without a fair trial.

Already two opposition legislators from the National Unity Platform accused of orchestrating a recent wave of killings in the Masaka area are in prison even though court granted them bail.

The two were rearrested by security operatives as they walked out of the prison where they had been remanded and charged afresh.

The president’s proposal also faces opposition from the judiciary. Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny-Dollo said bail is a constitutional right to be either granted or denied upon the discretion of the presiding judicial officer.

Since the bombing last month, security forces have increased operations targeting terror suspects, their collaborators and domestic terror cells, according to police spokesperson Fred Enanga.

Most of the raids are made in the night and suspects are held in ungazetted places without the access to family and lawyers.

Police shot five terror suspects last month for “resisting arrest” or “trying to run away” but the children of one, a cleric named Muhammad Kirevu, said he was first handcuffed, then shot as they watched through windows.

Kirevu’s wife was arrested by security officers and the family cannot trace her whereabouts.