Ugandan Novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who is currently in exile has raised the Shs 40 million required of the four people who stood as his sureties when court granted him bail.
Yesterday, Kakwenza launched a campaign aimed at raising the Shs40m to save his colleagues. He was looking for 5,000 generous people who could send him Shs 8,000.
The four include; Ashanah Annah, Job Kiija, lawyer Julius Galisonga Kibande and David Lewis Rubongoya, the secretary general of the National Unity Platform (NUP).
“I have got Shs 40m. Fundraising has been successful. Now waiting for magistrate Dr. Douglas Singiza to send me the account number to which I will make a deposit and save my sureties from sitting in cold jail,” he said.
Yesterday, Buganda Road Magistrate Dr. Douglas Singiza issued a warrant of arrest against the four sureties. According to the magistrate, the four didn’t appear before Court after they were served for failure to produce Kakwenza.
Kakwenza was arrested at Kisaasi after a three days twitter feud with supporters of UPDF Land forces commander Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Kakwenza averred that Muhoozi’s supporters were allegedly bullying him for criticizing President Yoweri Museveni.
Kakwenza is charged with two counts of offensive communication, contrary to Section 25 of the computer misuse act 2011. The Lawyer pleaded not guilty and subsequently remanded to Kitalya prison till 21st January 2022. He was on 25th January 2022 granted Shs 500,000 cash bail as his Sureties were ordered to pay 10mshs noncash. He on February 9, 2022 fled into exile and is currently in Germany.
Prosecution avers that Kakwenza on 24th December 2021 in the Kampala District, willfully and repeatedly used his Twitter handle to commit cases of offensive communication against the President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and the first son Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, with no purpose of legitimate communication.
Rukirabashaija is the author of the novel The Greedy Barbarian, which takes on themes of high-level corruption in a fictional country. He was arrested on 13 April 2020 in Uganda, and held for seven days, during which time he was interrogated about his fiction and subjected to torture and later released. Rukirabashaija details this treatment in his latest work banana republic: Where Writing is Treasonous.
