Uganda law society (ULS) has threatened to commence private prosecution against the Director General of internal security organisation (ISO) Col Kaka Bagyenda and individual officers for storming of MTN Towers, abduction and illegally detention of employees.
On 2 July 2018, two employees of Huawei Uganda (a contractor of MTN Uganda) were detained from MTN Towers, Hannington Road by heavily armed men in civilian clothing claiming to be Internal Security Organisation (ISO) agents who later forced to be granted access to the MTN Uganda’s Data Centre at Mutundwe.
ULS President Simon Kinobe contends that under section four and subsection two of security organisation act, ISO has no legal mandate to arrest and detain any person, “the power to arrest and detain is a preserve of police force and some instance the military through Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), therefore ISO is neither a department of police nor military,” he added.
“It is a crime for an employee of ISO to arrest and detain or confine any person that illegal behavior mounts to behavior prejudicial to security organ and attracts a prison term of ten years, ISO should not act with Impunity and should accountable to people,” he warned.
He implored government to denounce the attack on the telecom company and decisively deal with particular individuals who broke the law.
Kinobe said ULS has for a long time opposed to the practice of parading suspects because the exercise is of no legal value and presumption of innocence however some security agencies go ahead and bleach the law.
Col Kaka said he is ready to be prosecuted and serve the sentence as longer as he is working for the betterment of Uganda.
“Some people make alarm when we are putting the house in order,” he added.
He said they operate with other government security agencies mandated under the law and vowed that all the arrested suspects will soon be produced before court for prosecution.