He fled Rwanda in 2011 after being tortured at Camp Kami, a notorious
military facility outside the capital where detainees are subjected to
electric shocks, severe beatings and sensory deprivation, according to
Amnesty International.
Amnesty said Mutabazi was abducted more than a week ago and returned to
Rwanda illegally.
Joel Mutabazi, a Rwandan refugee, was abducted from a safe house on 25
October, 2013 where he was under the protection of the Ugandan authorities
and illegally returned to Rwanda, Amnesty said.
The organization urged Rwandan authorities to reveal Mutabazis whereabouts
and ensure that he has access to a lawyer of his choice, to medical care,
and is able to communicate with his family.
Rwandan officials accuse Mutabazi of terrorism and denied Friday that its
agents had abducted him. Rwandan police said the refugee had been arrested
and handed over by Ugandan police in a bid to fight organized crime through
Interpol and the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization.
Despite the claim, Interpol never issued an alert for Mutabazi.
There was no Interpol notice, said the director of Interpol International
Kampala, Asan Kasingye.
Mutabazi was not legally returned. Kasingye said, adding that Rwanda had
issued an international arrest warrant that Ugandan officials had not yet
approved.
The international arrest warrant was issued by Rwanda, only. We were in the
process of submitting it to the state attorney general for legal advice,
Kasingye said.
The attorney general had not even received it. Our legal office of the
police was still studying it. We had not submitted it to the attorney
general."
The circumstances of Mutabazis return to Rwanda remain unclear. Initial
reports indicated the refugee feared for his safety at the UN safe house,
where other high-risk refugees were residing.
The UN refugee agency representative in Uganda, Mohammed Adar, said security
was reinforced at the safe house after Ugandan officials had received
intelligence of possible renewed threats against refugees there.
Adar said Mutabazi might have misinterpreted these security moves and left
the premises in a panic, on his own.
Meanwhile, Ugandan authorities admitted that a senior police officer --
deputy director of crime intelligence Joel Aguma actually arrested
Mutabazi after the refugee fled.
The rogue police officer has since been suspended for this act and is being
investigated, officials said.
Newspaper reports pointed to Agumas close ties with Kigali, having returned
to Uganda last month from a one-year stint at Rwandas National Police
College.
Kampalas Interpol chief insisted the handover was not sanctioned. It is
not under the law.
There was no legal basis for this transfer, he added.
Ugandas state minister for relief and disaster preparedness in charge of
refugees, echoed the sentiment.
It is an act of criminality, an act of indiscipline, Musa Francis Ecweru
said.
It looks like this policeman may have conspired with one or two individuals
from Rwanda and abducted Mutabazi and handed him over, Ecweru said.
It was the second time in three months that Mutabazi had been targeted at a
UN protected facility in Kampala.
On August 20, Rwandan agents and rogue Ugandan police stormed another safe
house where Mutabazi, his wife and children were staying. The individuals
threw him into a car and drove him toward Entebbe airport where he was due
to be airlifted to Rwanda to face torture or death, according to friends and
family.
However during that incident, senior police officers in Kampala got wind of
the operation and informed the Ugandan prime ministers office. The car
carrying Mutabazi was forced to turn around and drop him off at a police
station.
At the time, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Uganda was apoplectic.
This is unbelievable, its very distressful, a UNHCR official said. What
we know is that Uganda is extremely angry. You wouldnt like it if your
country was being used for those kinds of acts.
The UN staffer was alluding to a recent spate of abductions, disappearances
and murders of Rwandan refugees on Ugandan territory that are growing in
disturbing intensity.
Its the third disappearance in a week, the official said in August,
referring to another former Kagame escort, Innocent Kalisa, who went missing
on August 12, along with a Rwandan asylum seeker named Pascal Manirakiza who
disappeared after leaving a police compound in southwestern Uganda.
Manirakiza was tortured, dumped in a cemetery, and eventually found
unconscious.
The three men had one thing in common: they have all criticized human rights
abuses under Kagames leadership.
Manirakiza, 23, had publicly spoken of being forcefully recruited into the
M23, a militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo sponsored by Rwanda. The
M23 stands accused by the UN of committing rape, murder and mayhem in the
DRCs mineral rich eastern Kivu provinces.
Kalisa and Mutabazi had meanwhile denounced what they describe as systematic
torture, slaughter, and political persecution of innocent Rwandans, both
Hutu and Tutsi.
A leading authority on refugees worldwide expressed moral outrage Saturday,
saying Uganda should immediately stop Rwanda from terrorizing and kidnapping
asylum seekers on its soil.
The situation in Uganda has hit a real low when the UNCHR is unable to
protect a Rwandan in one of their safe houses, said Barbara Harrell-Bond, a
refugee advocate and founder of the Refugees Studies Centre at Oxford
University.
When will Uganda stop Rwandan government agents from using its country to
threaten, terrorize, and now abduct or cause to disappear refugees under its
protection? she asked.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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