Government ordered to compensate 20 detainees
By Fred Kyobe and Raymond Baguma
THE High Court has ordered the Attorney General to release sh230m as compensation for 21 people arrested and detained by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in northern Uganda last year.
Justice Augustine Kania yesterday directed that 20 complainants receive sh10m each while the relatives of Peter Oloya who died in December 2002 while in detention be paid sh30m.
The people were detained by the army on suspicion of being the Lord’s Resistance Army collaborators.
Aswa county M, Ronald Okumu Reagan and former MP Livingstone Okello Okello brought the complaint last year on behalf of Oloya and twenty others arrested and detained by the army under the anti-rebel operation code-named Operation Iron Fist. The judge ordered the State to pay for the costs of the suit.
The Attorney General’s representative, Benjamin Wamamba, told the court last year that Oloya was accidentally shot dead in a UPDF cross fire.
Kania said each of prisoners held with Oloya (not mentioned in the suit) be compensated 10 million each for illegal detention and deprivation of their rights.
The complainants told the judge that they were detained in a military barracks, subjected to torture and inhuman treatment. They argued that the actions of the UPDF violated their constitutional rights.
The UPDF has fought Kony for over 15 years. The fighting has brought the economy of the region to near standstill and displaced thousands of civilians.
Published on: Saturday, 15th February, 2003
By Fred Kyobe and Raymond Baguma
THE High Court has ordered the Attorney General to release sh230m as compensation for 21 people arrested and detained by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in northern Uganda last year.
Justice Augustine Kania yesterday directed that 20 complainants receive sh10m each while the relatives of Peter Oloya who died in December 2002 while in detention be paid sh30m.
The people were detained by the army on suspicion of being the Lord’s Resistance Army collaborators.
Aswa county M, Ronald Okumu Reagan and former MP Livingstone Okello Okello brought the complaint last year on behalf of Oloya and twenty others arrested and detained by the army under the anti-rebel operation code-named Operation Iron Fist. The judge ordered the State to pay for the costs of the suit.
The Attorney General’s representative, Benjamin Wamamba, told the court last year that Oloya was accidentally shot dead in a UPDF cross fire.
Kania said each of prisoners held with Oloya (not mentioned in the suit) be compensated 10 million each for illegal detention and deprivation of their rights.
The complainants told the judge that they were detained in a military barracks, subjected to torture and inhuman treatment. They argued that the actions of the UPDF violated their constitutional rights.
The UPDF has fought Kony for over 15 years. The fighting has brought the economy of the region to near standstill and displaced thousands of civilians.
Published on: Saturday, 15th February, 2003
