Police on the spot over 'recycled' terror alerts
These cut-outs show government-owned New Vision stories about the alleged terrorist Ahmed Khaled carried on June 2, 2012 and yesterday. The police have been accused of recycling information about a suspected terrorist attack in Kampala. Photo by Faiswal Kasirye.
What you need to know:
Force accused of recycling old information about alleged terrorist as its spokesperson admits latest alert was rushed out before verification.
The authenticity of Uganda Police proclamations on terrorist threats was last evening called into question after proprietors of a bus that allegedly transported a suspected terrorist in the country challenged the account.
A police squad led by the Central Police Station commander, Mr James Ruhweza, separately raided a five-star hotel in Kampala yesterday morning, only to find the person they targeted as the suspected terrorist, was an Egyptian national here to exhibit wares at the ongoing international trade fair organised by Uganda Manufacturers Association.
Mr Ruhweza last night declined to comment on the unsuccessful operation. This newspaper was, however, told police photocopied the bio-data page of the passport of the man they thought was Mueller alias Ahmed Khaled, a suspected terrorist of dual Somali-German parentage.
An apparent recycling of official information, based on examination of press conferences pronouncements and other official statements, yesterday opened the Force to even further scrutiny. The Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, told the media this week that they received intelligence from “credible sources” that Mueller travelled to Uganda by a Kalita bus on October 1. According to his account, Mueller crossed from Limulu on the Kenyan side aboard Kalita bus registration, KBF 057N, and alighted “at some point along Jinja Road in Kampala”.
“We need to remind the public that this terrorist, Mueller alias Ahmed Khaled, was given wide publicity when, last year, in January he, together with another terrorist, Erdogon were reported to be in Uganda. Later, Erdogan travelled to Tanzania, but was arrested by the Tanzania security forces there,” the IGP said.
The latest official narration, including of the bus details, bears striking similarity to an account the then Police counter terrorism chief, Mr John Ndugutse, offered to the media about the same suspect in June, last year.
“Whereas the hunt is on for the one who sneaked into the country on board a Kalita bus, we are also hunting for these two given that a terrorist never works single handedly. They work in cells and these ones are suspected to be in the country,” Mr Ndungutse was quoted by the New Vision on June 2, 2012.
The narrative then was that Mueller dodged a mandatory screening exercise where authorities in Nairobi photograph all passengers since he vanished only to board the Kalita bus about 3km from the terminal, and that he later disembarked before the Busia border checkpoint, emerging to re-board the bus 3km inside Uganda.
‘False information’
In an interview yesterday, Kalita Bus Company executive director Hope Kaganda said police investigations into last year’s allegation that they transported a suspected terrorist turned out to be false and questioned the IGP’s motive in recycling the story.
“Before police releases such sensitive information, they must first carry out investigation to verify,” she said, “Every day, we have only one bus which moves on that specific route unless another is hired. [Our bus registration] KBF 057N was not on that route at all.”
The said bus, according to company official Mark Asiimwe, has been for repairs at the workshop in Kabusu, Rubaga city suburb, over the last two months.
Police yesterday failed to explain how Mueller skirts the country’s security network on his chase to slip into and out of the country with ease, with counter-terrorism chief Godfrey Chombe referring us to the Force’s publicists.
According to police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba, police will investigate genuineness of the latest terror alert but it was “better to give out information and verify because we are on very high alert.”
Withholding information in the wake of the September 21 Westgate terrorist attacks in Nairobi would be counter-productive, she said, and security agencies would be blamed if an attack were to occur again and catch the public unawares.
Ms Nabakooba said: “Sharing information is a powerful tool in fighting terrorism…it is not that we are cooking it [terror alerts] from the police headquarters.”
The police have issued at least 15 terrorist threats since July 2010 when twin explosions in Kampala, which the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab claimed, killed nearly 80 people and injured many more.
One of the most publicised alerts was in October, last year, which forced IGP Kayihura not to attend the country’s Golden Independence anniversary so he could concentrate to neutralise the threat.
A review by security organs later showed the reported home-made explosives planted in city’s four municipalities were counterfeits, and a multi-agency squad during a sting operation found one of the supposed bombs placed in a cattle kraal in Kawempe Division.
The police’s counter-terrorism approach recently raised eyebrows among various agencies after IGP Kayihura in the wake of Westgate attacks named Mr Ndugutse, now the First Secretary at Uganda’s High Commission in Nairobi, as Uganda’s lead anti-Terrorism person in Kenya, rendering him vulnerable to possible attack by either terrorists or hostile nations. Security insiders also speak of power wrangles between Uganda’s secret security agencies and police mainly over counter-terrorism operational funds.
