Nobody Can 'Touch' Saleh, Says
Uganda Opposition
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
AS THE director of Public Prosecution, Richard Butera, starts independent investigations of Major General Salim Saleh and Col Kiiza Besigye to obtain grounds over the loss in the purchase of two "junk" helicopters in 1997, the opposition says it doubts the government's will to prosecute officials implicated.
The Uganda Cabinet last week recommended the prosecution of army officers, businessmen and civil servants implicated by a report by High Court judge Justice Julia Ssebutinde in the purchase of the two attack helicopters in 1997 from the Republic of Belarus.
"There has been no will to prosecute the president's younger brother, Salim Saleh. The investigations to be carried out by Butera are a gimmick and are exciting the public for nothing," said Dr James Rwanyarare of Uganda People's Congress. Rwanyarare said that "no one could prosecute" Saleh.
He recalled that the president's brother had been implicated in a number of scandals including the illegal purchase of Uganda Commercial Bank Ltd in 1998, but he has never been prosecuted. In 1998, at the height of the scandal overthe purchase of the bank by a Malaysian firm, Westmont, Saleh admitted his role in helping a local bank, Greenland, to buy shares in the bank, though it was against the sale agreement.
The former managing director of Greenland Bank, Dr Sulaiman Kiggundu, was prosecuted and sent to jail for six months.
However, the prosecutor said that his office has "already taken the first step and a committee with investigators from the CID has been instituted to investigate the recommendations of the Ssebutinde report in order to establish a criminal offence."
Mr Butera said his team have to make the investigations themselves because Justice Julia Ssebutinde's report was not intended to establish grounds for criminal prosecution.
"I do not believe that the government is serious at all. There are so many reports made by Justice Ssebutinde and none of them has ever been acted upon: They have always sat on them," said Elias Lukwago, a legal counsel for the Democratic Party.
Three years ago, Justice Ssebutinde, after investigating the police force, recommended the prosecution of senior police officers, but none were prosecuted after the Inspectorate General of Government, Jotham Tumwesigye carried out independent investigations later.
Mr Tumwesigye told The EastAfrican last week that he did not find enough grounds to prosecute the police officers as recommended by Justice Ssebutinde.
"The government is just gambling on these issues. Ssebutinde cleared some of these people like Col Besigye, so why should his name come up again?" asked Mr Rwanyarare. He said bringing up Besigye's name was part of a witch hunt.
In the 2001, Besigye was runner-up in a presidential election declared by the courts as marred by violence and malpractice. Before deciding to contest for the presidency, Besigye, now in exile, was President Museveni's long time personal physician and the National Political Commissar of the ruling Movement.
Mr Butera said his team would establish their own grounds for prosecution in spite of the Cabinet's directive after reading the Justice Julia Ssebutinde's report into the purchase of the mi-24 attack helicopters.
More than $10million was lost in the deal, which involved the purchase of two choppers from the former Soviet republic of Belarus.
Among the people recommended for trial are Col Dr Kizza Besigye, former Chief of Logistics and Engineering, Salim Saleh, motor rally ace Emmanuel Katto, and his wife Naomi, the owner of Consolidated Sales Corporation and former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Dr Ben Mbonye.
Others are Uganda Peoples Defence Forces deputy director Joshua Masaba, pilot Col Getahun Kassa, former Bank of Uganda, commercial banking director Cyprian Mwa, former International Credit Bank managing director Patrick Katto and businessman, Kwame Ruyondo.
The Cabinet ordered the Attorney General to lift CSC's corporate veil and proceed personally against Katto, his wife, their overseas colleagues, Max Waterman and Chris Smith and others to recover special damages for the cost of overhaul of the two helicopters.
The aircraft are now standing idle at the main military airport at Entebbe, 32km south of Kampala city. The Cabinet observed that they ought to have been overhauled before being supplied, which was not done.
The Cabinet last week ordered their immediate overhaul so that they could be put to their proper use.
The choppers were bought at the height of an insurgency in north and western Uganda by rebels of Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army and the Allied Democratic Forces. At the time, Uganda had also committed troops to back up rebels fighting the Kinshasa government.
When the case was first investigated, Saleh accepted that he had received a commission of $800,000 in the deal and his brother, President Museveni, corroborated this by saying his sibling confessed to him and that he had ordered him to use the money in the war in northern Uganda
Mr Lukwago, a long standing critic of the Movement government, said that the Cabinet should have recommended that all those implicated be produced in a civilian court, "since this is corruption and the civilian court has the provision and capacity to handle corruption cases."
In its recommendations, the Cabinet directed that implicated army officers should face an army court martial. The report also recommended that officials should be held directly liable for the loss and be prosecuted for corruption, fraud, negligence and other offences
Mr Lukwago says that the failure by the government to prosecute those implicated in the report showed that the Movement system has lost moral authority to lead the country.
The chopper deal is one of the high-profile corruption cases to have been investigated in Uganda.
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Additional report by Vincent Mayanja
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