DP accuses army of parading fake suspects in court martial

By Stephen Kalema

The Democratic Party (DP) has dismissed a video that shows four men who allegedly tortured Yusuf Kawooya before an army disciplinary unit as fake..

According to DP president general Norbert Mao, party leaders with the help of the experts reviewed the video footage of the army officers during Kawooya’s arrest and discovered that the suspects are not the same with those the army produced in the court.

Kawoya, a member of Uganda Young Democrats, the DP youth wing, came in limelight last week after a video, recorded by Record TV as he was brutally arrested went viral. In the video, four men are captured hit him with gun butts before bundling him into a waiting taxi in broad day light. Up to now, his whereabouts are yet to be known.

“The court martial video in Mbuya was a high profile hoax, stage managed with the intent to deceive and mislead the public but our experts were concerned about the man who was wearing a checkered shirt who they claimed was the person in the video during the arrest of Kawooya. The body physique of the two men don’t match. So we challenge the military to produce those man that tortured and arrested Kawooya in court.”

“We don’t trust nor accept that video which was recorded by them in accordance to their own arrangement and which they released later with the intention of deceiving the general public,”  Mao said.

Mao wondered why they did not allow members of the public in the court martial trial of the four suspects as it was done during the treason trial of Kyadondo East legislator Robert Kyagulanyi, who was paraded in court full of supporters.

“In Kawooya’s case, the charges are still not known and probably not as serious as treason. We demand that the army come out and clean this up. We reject the video of the trial that has been shown to us as fake and we shall say ‘shame upon UPDF’ for trying to dupe the public,” added Mao

Mao said the army is in the big operation of ‘covering up.’

“We have the original video of men who tortured Kawooya. We can compare them with those paraded in the court and we are now convinced that army is in massive cover up operation.”

Mao promised that the party is carrying out private investigations with the view of naming and those who clearly carried out the torture.

Meanwhile, Mao demanded for immediate release of Kawooya who is has been in detention for more than 48 hours.

“As DP we have instructed our legal team to file for habeas corpus, to have him produced before court. The high court of Appeal is people power and people will not hesitate to take to the streets and protest against the illegal detention of any citizen in Uganda,” Mao cautioned the army.

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