Besigye’s tormentor Gilbert Arinaitwe charged, remanded over aggravated trafficking
SP Gilbert Arinaitwe Bwana, 43, a Detective Superintendent of police seen in the dock on August 10, 2023 at Buganda Road Court. PHOTO/ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The teenage girl, according to the police record, said that she was raped in the house at Nalumunye Village, Rubaga Division, Kampala City, owned by Arinaitwe . She alleged that she was first raped on the night of July 25 at gunpoint.
Mr Gilbert Arinaitwe Bwana, a police officer who came to limelight in 2011 when he smashed Dr Kizza Besigye’s car and sprayed pepper in his eyes at Mulago Roundabout to stop him from demonstrating, has been charged and remanded to Luzira prison over alleged charge of aggravated trafficking.
Arinaitwe, 43, a Detective Superintendent of Police has appeared before Chief Magistrate at Buganda Road Court, Mr Ronald Kayizzi where he has pleaded not guilty to the charge of aggravated trafficking in persons contrary to section 3(1)(a) and (4)(h) of the prevention of trafficking in Persons Act 2009.
Through his lawyer Arinaitwe has applied for bail basing on grounds that the offence with which he is charged is bailable, he is a sole breadwinner of his young family and has three substantial sureties including his mother Olive Bwana, Sandy Nicholas ; a police officer, his cousin and his friend Lukwiya John Patrick.
“ It is late I can not write and deliver the ruling now, I will deliver the same on August 18, the suspect shall be kept on remand until that date,” Mr Kayizzi ruled.
According to the charge sheet presented by prosecution led by Ivan Kyazze, Arinaitwe and others still at large on June 23, 2023 at Nalumunye Bandwe, Kyengera Town Council in Wakiso district " recruited or maintained or confined or transported or transferred or harbored or received or facilitated aforementioned acts on [a teenage girl] by means of threat or use of force other forms of coercion or deception or abuse of power or position of vulnerability for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labour or involuntary servitude or debt bondage."
He has been remanded until August 18 for bail ruling.
The teenage girl, according to the police record, said that she was raped in the house at Nalumunye Village, Rubaga Division, Kampala City, owned by Arinaitwe . She alleged that she was first raped on the night of July 25 at gunpoint.
She claimed to have been raped again on seven occasions thereafter while being threatened not to report the matter.
It is further alleged that during that time, her assailant confined her in the house with little or no food and later refused to pay her salary but she later found a way to report her predicament to a friend who passed on the information to the local council defence secretary.
On August 4, 2017, Arinaitwe was arrested for allegedly raping a teenage girl in his vehicle at Nakawa, a Kampala suburb shortly after his redeployment to the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) in April, 2016 after spending five years on suspension.
He reportedly exchanged telephone contacts with the girl at CID headquarters in Kampala where she had been taken by her mother to be counselled on her unbecoming sexual desires that had affected her academic performance.
However, he was never brought to court.
