Chief of Defence Forces Gen David Muhoozi has sent a team of senior officials to probe circumstances under which security personnel manhandled Mityana District Chairperson Joseph Luzige.
On July 07, officers on patrol manhandled Luzige after he warned them to stop beating up people.
The district boss narrated that he had found a woman bleeding with a fractured leg after UPDF soldiers beat her up.
“I moved out of my car and told the soldiers that what they were doing was wrong,” Luzige said.
He says it was his criticism of their highhandedness that made the officers assault him.
Luzige also claims that the UPDF soldiers had warned him not to order them since he was not the one who had deployed them.
UPDF and Ministry of Defence spokesperson Brig Richard Karemire confirmed the officers were on patrol to enforce the curfew directive.
Karemire also confirmed that “a patrol squad on routine duty in Mityana Municipality manhandled” Luzige but “the circumstances are yet to be established.”
“This incident no doubt has attracted a lot of attention from the members of the public and the leaders in Mityana district and beyond,” added Brig Karemire.
“The UPDF regrets this gross act of indiscipline that is not characteristic of the UPDF as a people’s army.”
The army further spokesperson warned it would take disciplinary action against individual officers for their actions.
“We wish to restate that discipline remains a core value and bedrock on which the UPDF was founded,” Karemire noted.
“Anyone who deviates from this will always be punished according to the established laws.”
He cited the example of the recent sentencing of officers in Kasese for the murder of a civilian as evidence that all unprofessional conduct would be punished.
Security personnel are recently in the news for assault of civilians.
Some people recently accused police and LDUs for brutality meted on Makerere student Emmanuel Tegu.
Tegu succumbed to injuries from suspected ‘mob action.’ Police spokesperson Fred Enanga said Tegu had bi-polar disorder.
UPDF OFFICERS ARRESTED FOR MANHANDLING MITYANA DISTRICT BOSS LUZIGE
Karemire also revealed that security had arrested the officers involved in the assault of “one of our senior civilian leaders.”
The arrested are: L/Cpl Simon Peter Anguria, Pte Simon Odeke, Pte Caroline Musundi and Pte Isaac Okello.
The four officers will face charges in a military court.
Gen Muhoozi has also sent senior military officers to Mityana to investigate the matter.
They are Deputy Commander of Land Forces Maj Gen Sam Kavuma, First Division Commander Maj Gen Sam Kawaga, and Chief Political Commissar Maj Gen Henry Masiko.
