Police free suspects to decongest cells

Arua. A total of 20 suspects have been granted police bond to decongest Arua Central Police Station.
The police station has three small rooms, two for males and one for female suspects, which were built in early 1950s and are now nearly collapsing.
Mr Jude Nasucha, the station’s CIID officer, confirmed the development.

The congestion was due to the ongoing judicial officers’ strike that saw suspects piled in cells without trial.
“Last week, we received more suspects before letting go of those we already had in our custody. As you know, there is a strike by the judicial officers and this has led to congestion in our cells,” Mr Nasucha said.

Those released were suspects on minor offences such as theft, assault, threatening violence, and trespass among others, remaining with on murder, robbery, rape and other capital offences.
Recently, the Uganda Human Rights Commission regional officer, Ms Juliet Logose, said the police should desist from holding suspects for long, especially those on petty offences.
She said there was need to speed up investigations into some of the cases to decongest the cells.

According to the law, a person is innocent until proven guilty by competent courts of law and such a suspect is entitled to unconditional bail after 48 hours in cells.
On average, Arua Central Police Station receives about 15 suspects a day and many of them spend more than 48 hours in police cells on grounds of incomplete investigations and lack of follow-up of the reported cases.

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