Lord mayor Erias Lukwago has today survived lynching by a group of people who claimed they were supporters of police Chief General Kale Kayihura.
Kayihura, who was supposed to appear before the Makindye Magistrate’s court to answer to charges of failing to supervise his subordinates who were linked to beating opposition kingpin Dr Kizza Besigye’s supporters, failed to turn up for the hearing but his supporters made up for his absence, in style.
Carrying placards praising the IGP, the group that included boda boda cyclists and other holoi poloi, descended on Lord Mayor Lukwago, who was in the company of his confidant, Makindye West MP Allan Sewanyana, threatening to beat the lights out of the duo. It took the intervention of newly-deployed Kampala Metropolitan Commander Frank Mwesigwa to instruct his men to save the two, who were then rescued ‘commando style’, escaping from the charged crowd in a double cabin truck escorted by a police patrol vehicle that speedily left the court precincts.
Earlier, there was drama when the same people threatened to beat up those they suspected of being anti-Kayihura, including city lawyer Abdullah Kiwanuka of Lukwago and Company Advocates who, together with 19 other lawyers, pressed the police brutality charges against Kayihura.
It should be recalled that counsel Kiwanuka was once a victim of police brutality when in November 2013, police roughed him up at the City Hall and tore his shirt as he tried to deliver a High Court injunction issued by Justice Yasin Nyanzi to then KCCA councilor Allan Sewanyana, to stop the impeachment proceedings against then Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago.
Meanwhile, the proceedings against Gen Kayihura were adjourned to August 29, after the Makindye Magistrate Richard Mafabi advised the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to formally write to court, seeking to take over the prosecution of the IGP.
