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A trove of testimonies from greater than 200 individuals who accuse senior Ugandan officers, together with the president and his son, of torture, killings and different crimes in opposition to humanity has been submitted to the Worldwide Felony Courtroom in The Hague, a lawyer for the complainants mentioned on Tuesday.
The submitting is an effort to convey worldwide scrutiny to what human rights observers have known as a brutal authorities crackdown on opposition teams and activists within the East African nation within the months earlier than and after the nation’s bloody 2021 elections.
The briefing accuses 9 prime Ugandan officers of abuses, together with President Yoweri Museveni, who has dominated the nation with an iron grip for nearly 4 many years, and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who has been maneuvering to succeed his father.
A complete of 26 officers are accused of aiding and abetting the incarceration and systematic abuse of Ugandans, notably supporters of the musician turned opposition chief Bobi Wine, who ran for president in 2021.
The president’s deputy press secretary, Faruk Kirunda, known as the accusers political opponents who have been “peddling improper info” and operating to the worldwide court docket “with the purpose of tarnishing the picture of President Museveni.”
Andrew Mwenda, a spokesman for the president’s son, mentioned in a textual content message: “Had been they tortured? YES! Who directed it? We have to discover out. It is sensible for them to accuse a son of the president because it will increase the profile of their case.”
It will probably take months, and even years, for the Worldwide Felony Courtroom, or I.C.C., to announce whether or not it’s going to examine a case. Karim Khan, the court docket’s chief prosecutor, beforehand mentioned that his workplace is brief on workers and price range, and overwhelmed with investigations, together with allegations of warfare crimes in Ukraine and Afghanistan.
The prosecutor could also be reluctant to research the Uganda allegations, some analysts mentioned. The court docket has been closely criticized for prosecuting the vast majority of its instances in African nations, though some have been opened on the request of African governments.
The submitting was proven to The New York Occasions by Bruce I. Afran, a lawyer primarily based in Princeton, N.J., whose workforce gathered the testimonies. He additionally represents a number of main opposition figures in Uganda.
Within the paperwork, activists, opposition leaders and authorities critics described being waterboarded, whipped and stabbed, having chemical compounds thrown at them or being pressured to lie down subsequent to corpses.
The submitting accuses Mr. Museveni of bearing direct duty for the torture as a result of he’s the commander of the armed forces.
The accusations may intensify criticism of Mr. Museveni’s authorities, which not too long ago handed a sweeping anti-gay legislation that rights teams take into account among the many most punitive on the earth.
An I.C.C. investigation may additionally complicate the politics of succession in Uganda forward of the 2026 elections. Common Kainerugaba, 49, has made it clear he desires to interchange his 78-year-old father. However he has irked the older man with provocative tweets, together with floating the thought of invading Kenya.
Uganda has been a celebration to the Rome Statute that established the I.C.C. since 2002 — though Mr. Museveni has criticized the court docket and threatened to tug out.
Tom Maliti, a researcher who has monitored instances on the I.C.C., mentioned, “The prosecutor’s workplace is extremely conscious of the criticism that they’ve been specializing in Africa.”
The court docket’s instances in opposition to authorities officers in Africa haven’t been profitable, he famous, including that any prosecution must depend on the cooperation of the Ugandan authorities to gather proof and interview potential witnesses.
Most of these offering testimony are nameless as a result of many are nonetheless in Uganda, Mr. Afran mentioned. However a number of others, who sought asylum in Europe or the US, are named. They embody Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a outstanding author, and Amos Katumba, the founding father of a nongovernmental group who has partnered with Mr. Wine on tasks.
Many testified that safety forces had damaged into their houses and arrested them, or whisked them away on the road into unmarked vans. They mentioned they have been overwhelmed, burned with sizzling irons, electrocuted, made to eat feces, pressured to drink urine or had their tooth eliminated.
Mr. Museveni has acknowledged that a whole bunch of what he known as “terrorists” and “lawbreakers” had been arrested through the election season, and that an elite commando unit led on the time by his son had “killed a number of.”
4 victims say within the briefing that the president’s son visited them within the detention facilities the place they have been tortured. One is Mr. Rukirabashaija, the writer of a ebook satirizing the president, who was arrested in 2021 after mocking the president’s son on social media.
Mr. Rukirabashaija informed The Occasions final 12 months that he had been whipped and his thighs plucked with pliers in jail, the place Common Kainerugaba visited him thrice. On Tuesday, the final’s spokesman denied the 2 had ever met.
When he was launched final 12 months, Mr. Rukirabashaija fled the nation and now lives in Germany.
“The rule of legislation in Uganda doesn’t perform as a result of the courts are subservient to the federal government,” he mentioned in a cellphone interview on Tuesday. “I hope we will now discover justice.”
Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Breval, France.
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