DPC Mwesigye shattered my dreams, says battered journalist

Suspended DPC Joram Mwesigye at Buganda road court recently. Mr Mwesigye is said to have assaulted a local TV journalist, Mr Andrew Lwanga. File photo

KAMPALA.

“I am not sure whether I will be able to walk again without the help of crutches or even go back to work,” says Mr Andrew Lwanga, a journalist who was battered by suspended Old Kampala DPC, Mr Joram Mwesigye.
Mr Lwanga was on Wednesday testifying in a case in which Mr Mwesigye is charged with brutally assaulting him.
Appearing before Buganda Road Magistrate’s Court Mr Lwanga, who works with a local TV station said he had his entire body subjected to scan and the doctors found that his spine was bent and the bones had separated.
“Despite getting treatment from Nsambya Hospital, I am still in great pain. Your worship I cannot sleep, sit or move without a cloth tightly wrapped around my waist,” Mr Lwanga said with tears rolling down his cheeks.
He said: “The injuries I sustained have rendered me helpless; my child has not gone back to school and I cannot pay my rent because I have since stopped working.”
Mr Lwanga added that he was to undergo a surgery to correct his spine which was compressed but the doctors put the surgery on halt in order to review his treatment and observe how he responds to medicine given the ‘complexity’ of the surgery.
The trial magistrate, Ms Sanyu Mukasa adjourned the matter to March 30 for further hearing.
Mr Mwesigye was last month arrested and charged with assault and occasioning bodily harm and malicious damage of property but later released on a cash bail of Shs800,000.
Investigators attached to Professional Standards Unit arrested Mr Mwesigye on January 13, after his brutal attack on journalists who were covering a demonstration by the unemployed youth group on January 12.
Prosecution states that on January 12, at Florida bar and guest house along Namirembe road in Kampala, Mr Mwesigye assaulted Mr Lwanga.
It is also stated that on the same day along Shell Petrol Station in Bakuli, a city suburb, the suspect maliciously damaged two video cameras belonging to Mr Lwanga and another scribe, Mr Joseph Ssettimba.