By KT Reporter
The National Unity Platform-NUP party candidate in the Kawempe North by-election race, Elias Luyimbazi Nalukoola, has sued the government in the High Court in Kampala over the election violence.
Nalukoola, in his case against the Attorney General, is seeking a declaration that his arrest and detention by JATT officers at Kawempe police station shortly after his nomination on February 26th 2025, was unlawful.
He says his motor vehicle had been deliberately blocked by motor vehicles. belonging to the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Uganda Police Force (UPF) and was later beaten and flogged by the security personnel.
Records indicate that in his futile attempt to negotiate/drive out of the entanglement, the Police officers at the Electoral Commission offices demanded Nalukoola to vacate the venue to pave way for other aspirants whose nomination schedule had approached.
“The applicant opted to abandon his motor-vehicle and parted ways with his entourage he successfully walked from the Electoral Commission premises through Dr. Anas Kalisa Road”, reads the case.
Nalukoola adds that, unknown to him, the members of the Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force (JATT) were surveilling him, and they chose to attack him at Ttula Road by pulling him down on the ground towards a trench.
“Thereafter, the mean looking Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force (JATT) security officers clobbered the Applicant using an electric cable. After enduring such an embarrassment lowering the Applicant’s esteem before members of Kawempe North Constituency, he decided to run for his life by jumping on a boda boda to vacate the scene for medical checkup”, reads the petition.
It is Nalukoola’s evidence that the security belonging to the Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force (JATT) were all hooded and cladded in black police attire forcefully/violently grabbed him from a moving boda-boda (motorcycle) and started beating/clobbering using electric wire, punching, kicking him left right and center an extent of tiring his clothes/shredded to tartars.
He says he was later thrown into the waiting Toyota Hiace (Drone), Van registration Number UAK 707E, where he was stuffed/squeezed beneath the rear chair and kept on punching/stepping on until he was dumped at the Kawempe Police Station, where he was illegally detained for about four hours.
“The Applicant was inhumanely and violently arrested from Kawempe Mbogo, tortured and detained at Kawempe Police Station for close to four (4) hours without formal charge by the Respondent’s officials in the course of their duty”, adds the petition.
The Lawyer cum politician argues that the actions of the officers infringed upon his non-derogable rights as well as other fundamental human rights and freedoms protected by Articles 20 (2): 21 (2): 23 (2), 23 (3), 23 (4), & 23 (5); 24; 28 (1) & 28 (3); and 44 (a) & 44 (c) of the 1995 Uganda Constitution.
He says the actions severely affected and impaired his health, threatened his life, infringed on his dignity and caused him severe physical and psychological pain and suffering, humiliation and loss of self-worth, among other injuries.
He notes that the actions of security officers in Kawempe North by elections were manifestly unacceptable and demonstrably unjustifiable in a free and democratic society and specifically went beyond the permissible exercise of the Respondent’s authority.
Nalukoola further complains about the masked officers who don’t even wear name tags for easy identification and carry out brutal arrests of his electorate.
Nalukoola now demands a public apology from the Government, compensation for his violated fundamental rights to freedom from torture and detention and a rehabilitation order to pay all his medical and psychological care.
The Attorney General has not yet been summoned to file a response.
Nalukoola’s petition through his law firm comes a few hours before the elections.
The position fell vacant following the death of former MP Muhammad Ssegirinya in January-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
