ISO boss denies torture claims
Col Bagyenda
Kampala- The Director General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO), Col Frank Kaka Bagyenda, has denied torturing and holding suspects incommunicado across different security premises in the city.
“It is not true that there is torture as some say. I don’t believe in torture at all,” Col Bagyenda said.
He said he prefers soft measures of working with criminals to help them transform into responsible citizens so that they can help security agencies identify other lawbreakers.
Col Bagyenda was at the weekend addressing journalists at his office in Kampala in response to public outcry that ISO is torturing suspects in safe houses.
“I cannot deny that there are kawukumi [weevils] among us who torture but what I have been preaching internally is that they [ISO operatives] use soft measures,” he said.
He noted that their effort to fight criminality is frustrated by the bureaucratic court processes.
Col Bagyenda paraded former criminals whom he said have since transformed and are now working with ISO to fight crime.
One of them, Mr Paddy Sserunjogi, alias Sobi, told journalists that he was in the same safe house with Mr Evans Gabula. Mr Gabula last week told MPs on Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights that he was tortured for more than two months by ISO operatives in a safe house in Kyengera, Wakiso District.
But Sobi said Mr Gabula’s testimony was false.
“Someone who has been tortured can’t just run away like how he [Gabula] did. They used to beat us at Kireka and you would spend a month crawling. Did he remove his shirt and show MPs the scars on his body? Did he have any medical documents to prove his torture claims?” he said.
Sobi said Mr Gabula was being used by some security officials to undermine the credibility of ISO.
Recently, a group of citizens asked court to declare all arrests by ISO unconstitutional and order the immediate closure of all safe houses operated by the spy agency. Currently, the country is faced with reports of kidnap and disappearance of different people but after many days of uncertainty, some have been found to be held in safe houses.
