He was subsequently remanded to prison pending the hearing of his case. Now, UPDF has come out to clarify that the said suspect is not and has never been an army officer. Capt Amos Nsamba, the UPDF 5th Division spokesperson, says that there is no single record of any retired ‘Stephen Aine’ or any document showing that he is still a serving officer in the army.
“I clearly state to you that we don’t have a person by the name of Aine Stephen pertaining our records in our UPDF files. Our records have nobody of those names. And UPDF is not a weak force that it can hold personnel it doesn’t know,” said Nsamba.
According to Nsamba, there are people who masquerade as UPDF officers because they want to associate with the force, saying such people are tainting the image of the force.
“UPDF is not an association that you can associate with. There are procedures for joining, there are procedures for working with legally because it is a Ugandan force. But the question of associating with probably in absentia or otherwise is not there. But impersonation is a common case and police handles such anomalies – people masquerading as UPDF, people putting on our uniforms and for us, we don’t stop arresting them. That is what we have been doing for long,” Nsamba added.
Records in court show that between 2016 and August 2022 while at Tesobar Modern in Lira City West Division, Aine performed a sexual act with a minor now aged 17 years, who was under his care. He also recruited, harboured, received, and transported the victim by means of deception or abuse of power and position of vulnerability for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
This is not the first time the suspect is being accused of sexually abusing children. Early this year, the suspect was arrested on allegations of defilement but the charges were mysteriously dropped.
Aine first came to the limelight in 2021 when he accused justice Rubby Opio Aweri of forcefully claiming ownership of his land measuring 2 hectares on Plot 13, Imat Cecilia Ogwal road opposite Valley Resort hotel in Lira city. The matter is still before the court.
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