Five terror suspects have been committed to the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the High court to stand trial on multiple charges, including aggravated trafficking in children and terrorism.
The suspects Twaha Kasaijja, Ismail Kisambu, Muhammed Nabanji, Sadat Nsubuga, and Twaha Mutebi, on Thursday appeared before the Buganda Road court, presided over by chief magistrate Ronald Kayizzi, who committed them to the High court for trial after the director of public prosecutions (DPP) found sufficient evidence to prosecute them.
According to the indictment signed by the assistant DPP Lino Anguzu, the suspects will face trial on one count of belonging or professing to belong to a terrorist organization, one count of rendering support to a terrorist organization, and seven counts of aggravated trafficking in children.
The charges were allegedly committed between 2010 and 2023. The prosecution alleges that the suspects were involved in recruiting and transporting seven children to a celebrated terrorist organization, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) camps in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The suspects allegedly used deception, abuse of power, and fraud to recruit children under 18 years for purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour, and use in armed conflict.
“All the accused persons, by fraud or abuse of power or deception or position of vulnerability, recruited or received or transported or transferred children below 18 years, for purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labour or forced child marriage or use of child in armed conflict or use of person in illegal activities,” reads the indictment.
The prosecution will rely on evidence, including mobile phones, call data records, forensic reports, and witness testimony, to prove the charges against the suspects. Investigations into the suspects’ activities began in 2023, when police received intelligence information that several residents of Lower and Upper Konge Zone in Makindye Division, Kampala city, had sold their properties and disappeared.
One such resident was Abdurahaman Ssemanda, who sold his butcher shop to Badiru Mwanje for Shs 23 million and ran away from the village. The DPP indicates that the police investigations led them to track down Twaha Kasaijja, who admitted to transporting ADF recruits and relief items from Kampala to the Mpondwe border in Kasese district.
Further, the prosecution indicates that Kasaijja’s mobile phone records were analyzed, revealing his communication with other suspects, including Muhammad Nabanji. Nabanji, during the police interview, reportedly confessed to taking three of his children, aged 6, 8, and 10, to ADF camps in DRC in 2011.
One of the children was later rescued by the Uganda Red Cross Society and returned to Uganda, and some other children were rescued from Iganga district, while others haven’t yet been returned.
All five accused persons have now gone back to Luzira prison until such time when the High court will call them to start hearing their cases. Accused persons normally take longer on remand shortly after they have been committed to the High court to face trial.
Indeed in this African country it is normal for many disgruntled adult citizens to continue to think of going back to the bush as the ruling political party of NRM did during 1980/86. What these culprits have been doing to recruit children into ADF rebels is not new. President Museveni has said that if he losses state power, he will go back to the bush to get it back and probably do the same thing again as well. For the country of Buganda, such military determination is not proper to govern Uganda as a modern African country. The Kingdom state of Buganda accepted to come together with the rest of the neighbouring African tribal states by gentleman agreements within the 1962 national constitution. Not through civil wars and destruction of lives and property. One understands currently that there is a law of Amnesty for such rebels who harbour such ambitions to seek forgiveness for the atrocities they were coerced into committing during their time with all sorts of these ambitious African rebel groups. Such mismanagement of this country that is forcing these rebel groups to seek redress in the bush and the rigged elections that do not allow peaceful transition of Uganda state responsibilities do not allow the Kingdom state of Buganda to continue to get on in governance with the violent nature of the state of Uganda!
This business of always going to the bush to sort out Uganda’s problems does not work. This is what many of our Ganda citizens continue to advise NUP and any other political interests to conference with the trusted fraternities of the Kingdom state of Buganda on how to peacefully survive the coming violent national elections of Uganda that are coming during 2026.