I will hang death row prisoners, says Museveni

KAMPALA. President Museveni has said he will order the hanging of prisoners on death row in a bid to curb rampant killings in the country.
The President said he has not sanctioned execution of condemned prisoners for a long time because of his Christian values.
“I believe that this lenience is becoming a problem. I am going to revise this and hang a few. We must hang some of these people because if you see how they kill people, they deserve to be killed,” Mr Museveni said.
He made the revelation while presiding at the passing out ceremony of 706 Ugandan prisons warders and wardresses and 213 non-commissioned officers who are middle-level prison managers at Luzira Prisons grounds.

The President was responding to an appeal by the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr Johnson Byabashaija, asking the government to increase funding for education of prisoners as a strategy of ensuring rehabilitation of convicts.

“The idea of education for prisoners is a very good one but I do not know whether the ones (convicts) we are going to hang will benefit from that arrangement,” Mr Museveni said.
According to Prisons authorities, there are 278 convicts on death row with 78 whose sentences have been confirmed by the Supreme Court, the last court of appeal.

This means the 78 have exhausted the court process and are only awaiting execution unless they are pardoned by the President under the prerogative of mercy.
Senior prisons officials said the last execution was done in 1999 when 21 convicts were hanged.
At the function yesterday, Mr Museveni commissioned low-cost housing units and directed the prisons, army and police to stop using private contractors but use internal manpower to do some of the construction works.

He said the money for hiring private contractors would be saved to buy materials for construction of staff houses.
“You are not donors or doing poverty eradication for businessmen to construct. By using private businessmen, you end up becoming donors to business people who get loans from banks at 24 per cent. You end up enriching banks, then 18 per cent VAT, then the businessman wants profits of at least 15 per cent and once you use hired transport, 70 per cent end up in private pockets,” Mr Museveni said.

He commended the Prisons for constructing 480 low-cost housing units at Shs59m only.
The single-room units were constructed using own resources where prisoners provided the labour, made the bricks and extracted the sand and other materials for the construction.
Money was spent only on materials such as cement and a few others that could not be provided by the prisons internally.

Mr Byabashaija said with the passing out of 919 officers, the Prisons Service force now stands at 20 per cent of the required 49,470 strength.
Uganda Prison Service strength stands at 9,787 for both uniformed and civilian staff, including the Commissioner General.

Mr Byabashaija said the prisons population was 49,322 inmates as of December 31 last year, up from 58,850 previously.
He said Uganda Prisons rehabilitation strategy is ranked top in Africa because of the low re-offending rates which stand at 20 percent.

In a separate interview, Mr Byabashaija said the hangman’s noose is still functional and executors are available on call.
In an interview, human rights activist, Dr Livingstone Sewanyana, said: I do appreciate the President’s concern about the increasing crime rate. However, I take exception to his proposal that by executing prisoners will bring down crime rate.”
He said the current crisis the country is facing cannot be resolved by executing prisoners.

Past Executions

March 15, 1989: Kassim Obura, Lukoda Mugaga and Thomas Ndaigana were executed in Luzira prison. Kassim Obura, was a member of the Public Safety Unit, a government security agency responsible for gross human rights violations under the Idi Amin’s regime. He was convicted of murdering a prisoner in November 1973.
June 29, 1991: Nine prisoners separately convicted of various counts of aggravated robbery and murder were hanged.
March 1, 1993: Nine prisoners were hanged in Luzira among those was Christopher Sentamu and Yosefu Kizza.
April 27, 1999: Hajji Musa Sebirumbi and 27 others were executed in Luzira. Hajji Sebirumbi was Uganda People’s Congress Chairman in Luweero during the Obote II government. He was hanged for the murder of Edidian Luttamaguzi, a collaborator of Museveni’s National Resistance Army rebels during the 1981-86 bush war. Tom Malaba

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