Mukono Chief magistrates court has set the 27th of June to rule on whether or not the Ugandan Ambassador to Burundi Rt Maj. Gen Matayo Kyaligonza should be tried in the same court for assaulting a traffic female police officer.
Kyaligonja is jointly charged with his two body guards CPL Busindiche Peter and Private John Okurut. The date has been set by the chief magistrate Juliet Hatanga after Kyaligonja and his co accused as usual refused to turn up in court to take plea to the alleged charges.
These are needed to appear in court to answer to charges of assaulting and causing bodily harm to a female traffic officer Sgt Esther Namaganda.
They were meant to appear in court today to take plea after three failed summons , however, as always, Gen . Kyaligonza instead sent his team of lawyers including David Balondemu to represent him and his co accused.
Balondemu told court that Gen.Kyaliginza's accused are already being tried in the general court Martial and that it would be a miscarriage of justice for his clients to be tried in two separate courts over the same charges.
He explained that there is need for the both Courts to reconcile and see that his clients are only tried on one court.
However, lawyers representing the victim Michael Aboneka insists that Gen.Kyaligonja and his body guards should be tried in the chief magistrate court because being allegedly tried in the army court does not necessarily remove the charges in the civil court.
Since being first summoned in February, Gen.Kyaligonza has not appeared in court but has always sent his lawyers to represent him.
On the 10th of April, Gen.Kyaligonja's lawyers led by Caleb Alaka informed court that they had been instructed by Kyaligonja to confirm whether the assault case and the criminal summons are indeed in court before he could possibly appear .
Caleb Alaka had claimes that Gen.Kyaligonja could not report to court because he learnt of the case and summons only that day through one of the daily news papers .
However, Resident State Attorney Jonathan Muwaganya refuted the said claims on grounds that Gen.Kyaligonza was duly served with the previous summons since he managed to instruct his lawyers for today's appearance.
Muwaganya had further informed court that Gen.Kyaligonza's two guards ; Busindiche and Okurut are in Military detention at Makindye and that there is an arrangement with the ministry of defense and internal affairs to have them produced before the Mukono Magistrate court on that day but it never came to pass.
The accused led by 73 year old senior soldier are charged with one count of assault and causing actual bodily harm while his two UPDF body guards ; Busindiche and Okurut are separately charged with obstructing a police officer from executing her duties and common assault .
Prosecution states that the offenses were committed on the 24th of February 2019 at Seeta trading center in Mukono as sgt Namaganda was going about her traffic duties .
Meanwhile , Namaganda together with her husband Alphonse Musoni and their family lawyer Micheal Aboneka are always present in court and stated that they are going to seek civil remedies .
In a related development, On the 26th of March 2019, a UBC Journalist Deogratius Peter Otai dragged to the High court civil division the controversial Ugandan Ambassador to Burundi seeking over 400 million shillings as damages for allegedly assaulting him during the same incident.
The suit followed after the said journalist claimed that he was also assaulted by the suspects as he recorded the retired senior soldier together with his two body guards assaulting the female Traffic officer in Seeta.
Otai who is also the station manager of Magic FM which is an affiliate station of the National Broadcaster (UBC) says the Maj.Gen and his bodyguards assaulted him while on duty after he recorded them assaulting traffic officer Esther Namaganda on the 24th of February 2019 at Seeta round-about and shared the absurd incident on different social media networks.
In a petition filed jointly with the Uganda Journalist Association (UJA) through their lawyer of Kiiza and Company advocates against Amb. Kyaligonza , his two guards and the Attorney General, Otai wants court to order the defendants to compensate him for the violating his fundamental rights to torture, ill-treatment and abstraction from executing his journalistic duties .
According to documents before court,the petitioner claims that he was shocked to Kyaligonja's two body guards dresses in full UPDF military attire and the Ambassador slapping and cocking a gun to Namaganda.
And that it was this ill and cold treatment that prompted him and to take out his phone and started video recording the incident.
Otai further claims that when the two guards saw him , they confronted him by demanding to know who he was and he introduced himself as a journalist working with the National Broadcaster(UBC), but instead of letting him continue with his work, the guards surprisingly surrounded him , cocked their guns at him , slapped and kicked him with their Military boots while demanding that he deletes the videos and pictures he had taken .
He says that this was done as the crowd that had gathered watched on and by that time he was already fearing for his life when one of Kyaligonza's guards drew a sword around his neck forcing him to run for his life.
He explains that in total fear, he run to the nearest Health facility and while there, he shared the assault video that went viral on social media networks .
These now want court to declare that Amb Kyaligonza's actions including physical and verbal torture and threatening to injure the journalist amounted to an infringement of his rights and freedoms protected by the constitution.
The incident received a massive public criticism with members of Parliament asking President Museveni to recall Kyaligonja from Birundi while Women activists also demanded Maj.Gen.Kyaligonja's resignation for allegedly assaulting a woman.
However, the controversial soldier in reply called the MPs stupid for asking President Museveni to recall him from Birundi .
However, while reacting to the incident, President Museveni did criticize the incident but only advised the senior retired soldier to take his much energy to the battlefield in Somalia but did not recall him from Burundi.
The victim also revealed to the media how she was allegedly slapped by Kyaligonja and manhandled by his body guards as she tried to stop them from making a U turn in the middle of a road.
The army later came out and stated that it cannot charge Maj.Gen.Kyaligonja since he is not an active soldier following his retirement.
The Uganda Police later took charge of the assault file a d forwarded it to the Director of Public Prosecutions but he also returned back to police on grounds that he needed more witnesses to be able to sanction and forward the file to court so that the retires soldier can be prosecuted for his actions .
The retired UPDF officer is a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement party and also the vice chairperson for Western Region on top of being a member of the High Command of the Ugandan army.
He is also not new to violent behavior and it is alleged that in 1989 he was demoted for allegedly slapping the OC s Jinja road police station ASP Tumusiime.
He is also said to have beat up a news editor of Radio Hoima a one Amlan Tumusiime for airing a story which to him was not in his favor in 2001 on grounds that the story only favored his then opponent Tom Kyahurwenda.
Other alleged violent incidents include him allegedly beating up his neighbor over a land dispute in May 2018 among others.
However, many of these incidents have never been fully investigated by police or tried in the courts of laws.
In his defense, the retired senior soldier has denied ever slapping the traffic officer saying that he was not a slapping machine. In his own words Kyaligonjja stated that he is always provoked all the time and that he fought for freedom and he needs freedom too.
He stated that he is the one who brought the peace that everyone was enjoying and that they should never forget that he is number four in the army after Yoweri Museveni, Salim Saleh and Ellu Tumwuine.
He also dragged both the Traffic officer and the journalist to court for allegedly defaming him.
According to Kyaligonja, the traffic officer was undisciplined who held his escorts by the caller.