Hon Francis Zaake, the Mityana Municipality legislator, was arrested for distributing Covid relief food items to constituents during the first lockdown in March 2020.
The Mityana Municipality legislator, Hon Francis Zaake during the first lockdown in March 2020 was arrested and detained for distributing Covid relief food items to his constituents contrary to the presidential directives aimed at containing the spread of the virus.
Zaake who was first detained at Mityana Police Station and later the Special Investigations Division in Kireka said then that he was maliciously handled which left him damaged needing treatment.
Going on, the legislator also issued a document before court suing among others the Attorney General on behalf of the government and individual senior security officers including Abel Kandiiho, the CMI chief, Elly Womanya, the then commandant, Police Investigations Division in Kireka, SSP Bob Kagarura, the former Wamala Regional Police Commander, SP Alex Mwiine, the former Mukono District Police Commander, Twesigye Hamdan, a police officer attached to SID in Kireka, Musa Walugembe, the officer in charge of SID, Kireka and one Detective Assistant Commissioner of Police, Isaac Oketcho for being behind his torture.
In their defence, however, the security officers said Zaake must have got injured in the process of the arrest but that it was not the police’s intention to injure him.
“Hon Zaake held the metallic door of the cells and also placed one leg inside in between metal bars so that it is difficult for police to pull him out. FFU personnel pulled him out by force from the metallic bars,” the State Minister for Internal Affairs, Obiga Kania told Parliament last year.
However, in a ruling on Monday, Her Lordship Esta Nambayo ruled that how the legislator was manhandled inflicted not only pain but also strong injuries leaving parts of his body including the back and lower limbs damaged.
Nambayo raised that a report from the African Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims showed that Zaake was in great need of regular medical and psychological interventions, like physiotherapy of his back and the lower limbs together with verbal individual supportive therapy with psychoeducation and regular reviews by an ophthalmologist.
As a result, Nambayo said the detention meant that the Police infringed on the legislator’s “fundamental human right to dignity and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” which are protected by the 1995 constitution.
“ A declaration is hereby issued that the period between the 19th/04/2020 and the 29th 805 /04/2020, 10 days, that the applicant was detained for more than 48hrs before he was arraigned in the Chief Magistrate’s Court at Mityana, constituted unlawful and illegal detention and was in violation of his personal liberty under Article 23(4) (b) of the Constitution of Uganda,” Nambayo said.
As a result, she ordered the State to make payments worth sh75,000,000 as compensation for the brutal damages posed in addition, to pay for the costs of the said case.
Speaking shortly after the ruling, Zaake expressed his satisfaction towards the judge’s ruling saying that it is the first time in a long time that the court has made such a strong ruling. He, however, promised that he won’t stop the struggle against what he deems misrule.
“I am particularly happy that like the proverbial dead clock that is at least correct twice a day, the Judiciary has delivered justice at a time when so many other victims of even worse state wrongs are routinely denied redress for fear of upsetting the dictator and his enablers. We must keep up our struggle against misrule until such a time when getting justice from the judicial system is a certainty, not just a possibility.”
