Mbabazi answers Museveni on Aine

NTUNGAMO/MBALE:

Mr Amama Mbabazi yesterday said he had no response to President Museveni’s assertions that Mr Christopher Aine was in hiding because the President was “fond of using foul language”.
“President Museveni is fond of using foul language and I have no intention of joining him,” the Go Forward presidential candidate said yesterday at a press conference in Mbale Town, eastern Uganda.

Mr Mbabazi’s remarks come a day after the President told journalists in Ntungamo District that Mr Aine, the head of Mr Mbabazi’s private security, was being hidden by those he was working for.

Mr Museveni said: “Those who sent him are hiding him. He is not yet arrested. If he was arrested, why did they kill him? A person who is photographed beating another, they kill (him)?”

However, Mr Mbabazi, in an earlier press conference in Mbale at the weekend, urged police to produce Mr Aine or conclusively deny having him so he can try other means in seeking justice for his head of security.

The former prime minister yesterday dismissed claims by police and President Museveni that Mr Aine is in hiding and instead said he had chosen to keep quiet to give chance to the court process started by his lawyers to save his aide from detention without trial. “I have not been saying much about it because I have been going by the statement my lawyers issued about Aine. Since then, they have filed a writ of habeas corpus and I am simply waiting for police to produce his body or to say conclusively that they don’t have him,” Mr Mbabazi said.

He further said he does not want to speculate anything about Mr Aine for now and that he will react accordingly if it is confirmed he is dead.

“… the issue is in court. But as you are already aware our lawyers filed a motion in court and what is waiting is for police to produce his body [if he’s dead] or produce him because they have him.”

Background
Mr Aine, the son of the late Lt Colonel Julius Aine, one of the 27 armed men who started the war that brought President Museveni to power, was kidnapped on December 17, from his home in Kyanja, a Kampala suburb. Police say they never arrested him but his uncle swore an affidavit in the High Court, saying the Force picked up his nephew.

Last week, a local tabloid splashed a photo of a body with visible torture wounds, claiming it was Aine’s. Police have since said it’s not Mr Mbabazi’s aide and have challenged the newspaper to divulge the source of the photo and prove he is the one.

‘Govt cannot kill Aine’
But at the weekend, President Museveni said the government cannot kill Mr Aine.
“Why do they kill him? Is that the way NRM does things? If there is anyone who killed him, he is a killer and he goes to firing squad,” Mr Museveni said.

The President also blamed Mr Mbabazi for “looking on as his guards beat up people,” saying it is not a sign of a good leader. “My young brother Mbabazi was in a convoy seated looking at people being beaten, I don’t know whether he saw them; he remained silent.
“I can’t see my bodyguard beating up a person; leave alone beating, pushing a person, and I remain in there that I am a President. It can’t be; I come out and I slap such a soldier. Why do you beat a civilian? I have always been fighting with them; pushing, just leave alone beating people,” he said.