The Natural Resource Conservation Network together with Police in conjunction with Uganda Wildlife Authority recently arrested Major Allen Rutagira (Black T-shirt) and Corporal Collins Kamugisha, both Uganda Peoples Defence Forces staff under the Special Forces Command (SFC), while selling 21.5kgs of pure elephant ivory.
The duo and others were finally arrested on Thursday March 24 at Hotel Africana Kampala after long time investigations by conservationists and police and according to a release by one Laban Muhindo, the arrested SFC officers are attached to Entebbe International Airport, raising suspicions that they might have obtained the contraband from the vaults at the Airport. The SFC is an elite unit that among others provides guards for the President, his family and for all strategic installations in the country.
Meanwhile, according to Muhindo, Cpl Kamugisha`s confession led to the arrest of George Otika an accountant at Entebbe Handling Services, Able Bamonjobora, a State House driver and Simon Mbonye, a miner and businessman in Kampala who was waiting for the money from the transaction and was arrested at a petrol station in Kampala. Mbonye said the contraband belongs to Alex Sande, a businessman who was also arrested later on the same day
The four civilian suspects are detained at Central Police Station waiting to appear in court as the hunt for their counterparts intensifies while the soldiers were first detained at the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in Kireka but later transferred to Nalufenya Police Station in Jinja.
This comes at a time when another UPDF officer was arrested for the illicit dealing in Moroto in January.
Dozens of the elephants have been killed in recent years by villagers, who regard the pachyderms as pests that destroy their plantations. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists elephants as ‘critically endangered’ after their numbers dropped drastically to an estimated 5,000 last year.
CITES lists elephants in Appendix I (18/01/1990), and environmentalists say the elephants could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected.
