The trial of thirty one Muslim terror suspects including Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf Kamoga has today hit a temporary dead end after the prosecution and defence counsels failed to agree on how to proceed under the International Criminal Court (ICC) rules and procedures in regard to terrorism charges, which are considered international crimes.

The 31 suspects are charged with the murder of several Muslim clerics across among them Sheikhs Hassan Kiirya, Abdulkadir Muwaya, Abdulkarim Sentamu and Mustapha Bahiga.

The standoff followed the issue of amended procedures, given that the suspects are being charged with an international crime and, Defence Counsels Mac Dosman Kabega and Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi asked the presiding judges to allow for some amendments since the rules and laws were not clear to them.

The trial judges were then left with no option other than to invite Justice Duncan Gaswaga to clear some queries since both the prosecution and defense were not conversant with the ICC rules.

Justice Gaswaga referred the defence lawyers to Article 139 of the Constitution and noted that ‘this is the High Court of Uganda and not The Hague, so the position I hold at this court differs from the one I would hold while sitting at the ICC,” Justice Gaswaga told his learned friends. He however, promised to conduct further consultations on the procedural matters.

Prosecutor, Senior State Attorney Lino Anguzu, concurred with his colleagues about the new rules which require even the prosecution to amend the charge.

He added that some of the also provisions allow him to promote confidentiality while presenting witnesses because some of them need security.

In response Justice Gaswaga advised Prosecutor Anguzu to follow the requisite procedures while applying for security for the witnesses, but rejected prosecution’s request to be accorded more time to sort out the seeming procedural anomalies ‘like printing and photocopying documents, amending the charge, disclosing of evidence and arranging everything in proper order’ before the next pre-trial hearing.

The judge reminded Anguzu that prosecution had over two years to prepare for the case, a development that was welcomed by the 30 suspects, who also complained of being tortured while in custody.

This prompted the Judge to ask them if they can identify the people who torture them so that they can be brought to book, to which all the suspects responded in the affirmative.

Meanwhile, counsel Rwakafuzi complained that some of the suspects, identified as A27, A28, A 29, A 30 and A31, are not Ugandan nationals yet they are being charged in the High Court of Uganda.

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The Democratic Party (DP) youth leader Christopher Okidi has said that President Yoweri Museveni is a squatter on the Rwakitura land, where he has a country home.

Amid rib-cracking laughter, Mr Okidi, who was addressing the press at the party headquarters in Kampala today, also said that Mr Museveni has no right to sell the Rwakitura land, and vowed he would personally take a placard inscribed with the words ‘Rwakitura land not for sale’ to the President’s country home aboard a bus.

Mr Okidi, who was speaking at a launch campaign to ‘fight’ against alleged land grabbing by government’, also claimed that the grabbed land had been sold to investors.

He said the DP had laid down a number of strategies in respect to the campaign, including petitioning Parliament and also visiting all the places the party says had been grabbed by the government.

According to Mr. Okidi, the team will begin with Nakivubo Stadium and the Nabagereka Primary School, with placards reading ‘public land is not for sale’.

“The NRM government has turned Ugandan land into a one man property,” Mr. Okidi said, adding that this had “affected the poor Ugandans who carry out small survival businesses on this land and even some who own it and purchased it expensively.”

Citing the Shimoni land that was home to a Primary School and Teacher Training College, Mr Okidi said that the government has on several occasions taken land and just left it undeveloped. He added that the DP would ensure the land is returned to its rightful owners.

“There is nothing like idle land in Uganda; so there is need for the government to empower citizens and mobilize them on how best this land can be put to use rather than selling it off to investors who at the end of the day repatriate the profits to their countries,” he said.

Talking about corruption, Mr Okidi said the vice was rampant, perpetuated by ‘people loyal to the current regime’.

‘If it only takes a goat to buy public land’ the DP would also ‘sell one’, he said in reference to a recent scam involving the fraudulent purchase of a 23 acre piece of land belonging to the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) in Bugolobi, a leafy city suburb.

“The government is full of corruption and has turned the country’s property into private property,” he said, stressing that the DP youth are totally against land grabbing.

But contacted, Government Deputy Spokesperson Col Shaban Bantariza said the government was just reallocating its property.

“The land in question belongs to the Uganda Land Commission (ULC) ; it is the one that re-allocates the land. So what is the problem of government re-allocating its land to more useful purposes”? he wondered.

He added that the ‘DP should look for something else to keep it in the news’.

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