Shs40m, seven laptops stolen as rights office suffers third break-in
FHRI Director Livingstone Ssewanyana foresees foul play and Police Spokesperson Judith Nabakooba promises probe.
Unknown individuals raided the head offices of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) in Kampala on Sunday night, stealing at least Shs41 million, seven laptops and 11 cell phones.
The attack in which land titles, modems and computer accessories were snatched was the third in five years on FHRI offices in Nsambya, a city suburb, according to officials.
“In all these break-ins,” the executive director, Mr Livingstone Ssewanyana, said: “Our property has been stolen, desks vandalised and information scattered.”
The latest raid was “more violent”. A safe containing millions was carried away and 10 rooms broken into. This newspaper understands the money had been withdrawn last Friday to be distributed to staff for field work, planned to start yesterday.
Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network Project, accused by government of promoting homosexuality in Uganda, Dan Church Aid-Uganda and Protection Desk-Uganda Office are the other non-governmental organisations, whose offices were ransacked on Sunday night.
The premises were under watch by Security Group and the firm reported the vandalism around 6am yesterday, investigators and NGO staff said.
Mr Ivan Ofwono, the guard on duty, was apparently drugged, he spoke incoherently when detectives tried to question him.
Police Spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said they later took him into custody - after he had received first aid at Rubaga Hospital - to help with investigations of what is preliminarily being treated as a “robbery”.
Because substantial amounts of cash were involved, Ms Nabakooba said they suspect some staff could have been complicit. “We are wondering how they (attackers) identified and carried away the safe with money, she said, adding: “The robbers may have connived with inside people, but it is too early to conclude.”
Ms Elizabeth Nantamu, the FHRI deputy director for administration, and from whose office the cash was stolen, said an LCD projector had also been filched.
“By the time we came to office [yesterday], we found the place had already been vandalised. It was Security Group that informed us that they discovered the break-in at around 6am,” she said.
Officials said it was unclear if the invaders harboured other ominous intentions.
Mr Ssewanyana said since they are involved in sensitive work, including authoring reports critical of the government’s human rights record, inspecting prisons and reporting on squalid living conditions of prisoners, advocating for abolition of the death penalty and now championing the crusade for electoral reforms, “sabotage” could not be ruled out.
It would be strange for robbers to steal files containing records of human rights abuses kept in the National Paralegal Advisory Services and the Legal Aid Unit offices, he said.
FHRI head offices were first burgled just after the 2006 general elections and plundered again in 2010. Mr Ssewanyana said their suspicion about probable underhand methods to intimidate human rights defenders in the country are reinforced since police arrested no suspect in the two reported burglaries on their offices.
