NEWS– The Uganda Police Force has denied claims that Kampala Metropolitan CID commander Joel Ntabu was involved in torturing and threatening suspects arrested during anti-corruption protests.
On Monday, Luke Owoyesigyire, Deputy Police spokesperson for Kampala Metropolitan, responded to the allegations, stating that they are baseless. Owoyesigyire clarified that the CID officer in charge, Joel Ntabu, serves as a supervisor to ensure that case files are properly processed and sanctioned by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for further action against suspects, but is not involved in conducting interrogations.
According to Luke Owoyesigyire, Joel Ntabu’s role is limited to supervising case files and does not involve conducting interviews or interrogations with suspects.
“He never does interviews or interrogations on suspects but his work is specifically supervising case files. You can come out with your evidence if you have it but we can’t rely on tweets to say he did this or that” Owoyesigyire said.
Police has since challenged those making allegations against Ntabu to come forward with concrete evidence, emphasizing that tweets alone are insufficient to support such claims.
“I will advise the alleged victims to go to CID headquarters or Uganda Human Rights Commission and make a formal complaint and we shall ably investigate our officer in case he participated in such an act.”Owoyesigyire said.
At least more than 100 youths were last week arrested over participating in the march to parliament, protesting against corruption. A number of the suspects who are now out on bail have taken to social media to accuse police officers, especially Ntabu of superintending their torture.
Several individuals claiming to be victims have come forward alleging that they were physically assaulted, including being slapped and beaten, by a team of police officers under the Superintendent of SP Police Joel Ntabu while in custody, following their arrest during the protests marching to parliament.
“This man commanded a group of extremely harsh and angry officers who beat us as if we had wronged them personally. One officer saw me looking away as I asked them about our offence, came up from behind, sapped me and broke my glasses,” one of the alleged victims said on X.
The annual reports by the Uganda Human Rights Commission and other Human Rights Agencies have in the past named the Police and Army as the biggest violators of Human Rights in the country in their operations.
The report indicated that torture or cruel or inhuman degrading treatment and punishment was the biggest nature of human rights violation that continuously complained about by most of the victims.
