News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Uganda’s top cop faces torture charges

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 11:48 AM PDT

Uganda’s police chief, along with seven senior police commanders, expected to appear in court next week on charges of torture.

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KAMPALA– Uganda’s Inspector General of Police, General Kale Kayihura, is expected to appear in the Makindye Chief Magistrate’s Court on August 10, to answer to charges of alleged torture.

Kayihura is charged alongside seven of his senior police commanders in connection with the recent brutality of Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s supporters, who were allegedly beaten by the police in Kampala, Uganda.

Ugandan Police Force spokesperson, Fred Enanga, on Monday said the force had not seen the criminal summons against the police chief and other senior officers.

Kayihura suspended the suspected police officers when the police brutality allegations surfaced.

This will be the first time Kayihura appears in court and a total of 20 private lawyers have been lined up to take on the military general-cum- police chief, Kayihura next week.

The lawyers who will prosecute the police boss and the seven senior police officers will be led by Abdallah Kiwanuka from Lukwago and Company Advocates. Other notable lawyers are the Makerere University lecturer Dr Kabumba Busingye, Jude Mbabali and Daniel Walyemera.

Asked to explain why a huge number of advocates are needed to prosecute a single case, Walyemera said the law professionals have decided to come out in big numbers to defend the rule of law which is being abused by the police.

Many legal practitioners reasoned that Kayihura, who is a lawyer by profession, failed to respect the rule of law for which he himself is a student.

Walyemera said that torture is a very serious offence which every lawyer and citizen should rise against and speak out about.

“Torture is a very serious offence and every Ugandan, especially lawyers and journalists and other professions must come up in big numbers to fight it,” Walyemera said.

“There is growing level of impunity with the Uganda Police Force to an extent that the police chief in a press conference justified torture.”

On Monday, Besigye’s personal assistant, Ingrid Turinawe, posted on her Facebook page urging Ugandans to turn up in their numbers to witness Kayihura answer to charges of torture.

“Please come! Watch Kifesi in the dock,” Turinawe wrote.

“Let us be there and let us keep time,” she added.

The word Kifesi is a Luganda word to mean lumpen who harass opposition supporters in Uganda.

African News Agency

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100 kilos of cocaine seized in Kenya

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 11:18 AM PDT

Nearly 100 kilograms of cocaine has been seized in Kenya's main seaport by US DEA officials.

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Nairobi, Kenya - Nearly 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of cocaine have been seized at the country's main seaport by the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration officials and police, Kenyan police officials said Monday.

The cocaine was seized from a container delivered by ship from Brazil, said a senior police official who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

A British national and two Kenyans are being questioned, the official said.

The drugs were seized last week in containers supposedly carrying sugar destined for Uganda.

The seizure was a rare one in Kenya, which the UN and the US say it has become a cocaine distribution hub in recent years. Traffickers from South America are said to take advantage of Nairobi's extensive air links to Europe and Asia.

Traffickers also exploit Kenya's long Indian Ocean coastline and lack of adequate security controls at the port of Mombasa, the State Department's 2016 drug control strategy report said.

Stemming this flow of drugs is a challenge for Kenyan authorities. “Drug trafficking organizations take advantage of corruption within the Kenyan government and business community, and proceeds from drug trafficking contribute to the corruption of Kenyan institutions. High-level prosecutions or large seizures remain infrequent,” the report said.

For more than a decade, Kenya's police have been named annually by the local chapter of the global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International as the most corrupt institution in the country.

AP

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Call for peace ahead of Zambian polls

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 11:15 AM PDT

Zambia’s top religious leaders said the political violence witnessed during the 2016 election campaign was unprecedented in the history of local elections.

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Gaborone - The verification process of ballot papers which will be used in the upcoming Zambian presidential election set for August 11 has been completed, the electoral supervisory body has announced.

On August 11, Zambians will go to the polls to elect a new president, parliament and local council representatives. In a statement posted on its website on Monday, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) said the representatives of all political parties participating in the presidential poll had participated in the verification process.

No complaints or anomalies were raised by any of the political party representatives. The ECZ said it had since started the verification process for ballot papers to be used in the local government elections. At local government level, voters will elect new councillors, mayors and council chairpersons for all rural and urban local authorities.

Meanwhile, one of the country’s top religious leaders has warned that Zambia risked being engulfed by political fighting and social strife unless political leaders avoided making inflammatory statements that incited hatred during election campaigns.

Addressing residents who congregated in Lusaka on Sunday to pray for peace in the election period, Anglican Church of Zambian leader Bishop William Chombo said the political violence witnessed during the 2016 election campaign was unprecedented in the history of local elections.

“This country can go into flames due to careless language. What we know is that politics is just a vehicle to identify who are our leaders should be. Politics in itself is not an end, but rather a means to deliver development. What we have seen in this year’s election is the kind of political violence we have never witnessed before.

“People should not be hacking each other over nothing, what people want is to choose a leader who will move the country forward. That person can come from Patriotic Front, United Party for National Development, Forum for Democracy and Development, Movement for Multiparty Democracy, or any other. The goal should be to develop Zambia,” he said.

Bishop Chombo said voters should deny the politicians a chance to turn the country into yet another African war zone, just to fulfil their “selfish and greedy” intentions. Eight political parties will field candidates for the presidential, parliamentary and local government elections, which are set to take place on Thursday next week.

African News Agency

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Zimbabwe cops target war veterans

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 11:14 AM PDT

A Zimbabwean court freed a senior official of a war veterans association on bail, but police arrested another one, in an alleged crackdown on Mugabe’s former allies.

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HARARE - A Zimbabwean court on Monday freed a senior official of a war veterans association on bail, but police arrested another one , in what lawyers say is a crackdown by President Robert Mugabe against former allies who have asked him to step down.

Senior officials in the ruling ZANU-PF party are positioning themselves for a post-Mugabe era, which has seen the party being divided into two factions, one backing Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and the otherrallying behind the First Lady Grace Mugabe.

The secretive Mnangagwa, nicknamed “Crocodile” in the Shona language, held a news press conference with state media reporters on Saturday, where he denied having any presidential ambition and re-affirmed his loyalty to 92-year-old Mugabe.

Douglas Mahiya, information secretary of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), which backs Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe, was released on $300 bail.

Harare magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe refused a request by state prosecutors to keep Mahiya in detention for another 48 hours, while they appealed the court decision to free him.

Dozens of anti-riot police lined outside the court house wielding batons and AK-47 assault rifles.

The association of former liberation war fighters, who have acted as a backbone of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party since independence from Britain in 1980, last month accused him of running down the southern African state, eliminating rivals and being divisive in politics and manipulative in general.

Outside the Harare Magistrates Court, police arrested Victor Matemadanda, the secretary general of the ZNLWVA as he attended Mahiya's hearing, along with dozens of other war veterans.

Matemadanda will face the same charge levelled against Mahiya of insulting and undermining Mugabe's authority, which carries a jail term of up to one year upon conviction, his lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told Reuters.

Police have up to 48 hours to take Matemadanda to court.

Outspoken chairman of the ZNLWVA, Chris Mustvangwa, who was fired from his job as cabinet minister and from the ruling ZANU-PF party last month, also attended Monday's court session, alongside former vice president Joice Mujuru.

Political analysts say Zimbabwe could descend into chaos if Mugabe suddenly died without resolving the succession issue. Mugabe has previously accused the influental military of supporting different candidates to succeed him.

African News Agency

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Nigerian army killed 348 Shi’a: report

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 09:03 AM PDT

A judicial enquiry reported that 349 people from the minority Shi’a Muslim sect were killed by Nigeria’s army.

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Lagos - Nigeria's army killed 349 people from the minority Shi’a Muslim sect last December in a series of clashes for which troops involved should be prosecuted, a judicial inquiry has concluded in a report.

How the authorities respond to the inquiry's findings may indicate the extent to which reform is being implemented under a drive by President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, to root out human rights violations by soldiers.

The United States blocked arms sales to Nigeria and ended training of troops there under Buhari's predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, partly on concerns over human rights such as the treatment of captured suspected insurgents.

The report published on Sunday confirms claims by human rights groups such as Amnesty International that the army killed hundreds of Shi’a Muslims during three days of clashes in the northern city of Zaria. The army has repeatedly denied this.

“The Nigerian Army used excessive force,” said the report by a commission appointed by Kaduna state, where Zaria is located.

“The Commission therefore recommends that steps should immediately be taken to identify the members of the NA (Nigerian Army) who participated in the killings of 12th - 14th December 2015 incident with a view to prosecuting them,” it said.

The army has said Shi’as had blocked its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, and tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him.

“We are aware that the report has been made public and we are studying it,” Nigerian army spokesman Sani Usman said on Monday.

The commission's findings contained in the report said 349 people - including one soldier - were killed.

“Out of the said 349 dead persons, 347 (excluding the soldier) were buried in a mass grave,” said the report.

The commission said it had received 3 578 memoranda - 132 letters and 3,446 emails - along with 39 exhibits and 87 witnesses testimonies in the course of the inquiry and the writing of the 193-page report

Africa's most populous nation has around 180 million people, including several thousand Shi’a Muslims whose movement was inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Shi’a Iran.

The majority of the country's tens of millions of Muslims are Sunni - including the Boko Haram jihadist militants who have killed thousands in bombings and shootings mainly in the northeast since 2009.

Reuters

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9 killed in renewed fighting in South Sudan

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 08:58 AM PDT

Nine killed in renewed clashes between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of his longtime rival Riek Machar in South Sudan.

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Juba - At least nine people were killed in South Sudan over the weekend in renewed clashes between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of his longtime rival Riek Machar, a spokesman for Machar said on Monday.

Machar, the former vice president, and his SPLM-IO group have been caught up with more than two years of on-and-off, ethnically charged fighting with supporters of Kiir.

Machar returned to the capital Juba in April after a shaky peace deal but left again last month when new clashes broke out.

Kiir replaced Machar as vice president last week with Taban Deng Gai, after Machar ignored Kiir's request to return to Juba, further deepening a split in Machar's SPLM-IO party.

Nyarji Jermlili Roman, the deputy spokesman for Machar, said the nine died on Sunday when they ambushed a vehicle carrying government troops in Lainya county in Central Equatorial state.

“The government forces attacked our position but our forces, the SPLA-IO, managed to gain back control of the area called Magila, which is between Wonduroba and Katigerre,” Roman said.

Government military spokesman Lul Ruai Koang downplayed the weekend clashes, saying there was “small fighting” between the SPLA and Machar's forces.

“We engaged them and they tried to put up some resistance, but at the end we overcame them and they fled to different locations,” Koang said.

Koang accused the SPLA-IO of shelling the government military positions in Nasir town in Upper Nile state, while the opposition claimed it was the SPLA that shelled their positions.

Nothing has been heard from Machar since and Kiir replaced him as vice president.

In a further sign of trouble for the peace deal, Lam Akol, head of the opposition Democratic Change group, stepped down from his post as agriculture minister that he assumed after Kiir named a new unity cabinet following the peace deal.

“One side has decided to abrogate (the peace deal),” Akol told a news conference in the capital of neighbouring Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, on Monday.

The United States said over the weekend it had received “disturbing reports” of renewed violence in the south of the country and the United Nations is considering imposing an arms embargo.

Reuters

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Another Zim veterans leader arrested in crackdown

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 06:27 AM PDT

Zimbabwean police have arrested Victor Matemadanda, the second veterans official detained in a crackdown on the association's leaders.

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Harare - Zimbabwe police on Monday arrested a leading official of the veterans association as he stepped out of a courthouse where a colleague was answering charges of insulting the president.

Victor Matemadanda, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, was the second official detained in a crackdown on the association's leaders.

The once-loyal supporters of President Robert Mugabe last month turned on him, issuing a harshly worded statement describing him as “dictatorial.” The veterans of the southern African country's 1970s war of independence from white rule had long been quick to defend Mugabe, even with violence.

Mugabe responded by vowing “severe” punishment for those behind the statement. The association's spokesman, Douglas Mahiya, has been in detention since Wednesday.

Matemadanda faces the same charge as Mahiya, insulting or undermining the authority of the president, said Irene Petras, director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. The nonprofit organisation has been providing lawyers for the arrested veterans.

Police had a heavy presence at the courthouse Monday, forming a human chain to block the entrance. Scores of veterans gathered, singing wartime songs. Others cried and admonished the police, accusing them of doing no better than the white government they once fought.

Protests have become a near-daily occurrence in the capital, Harare, and other cities as frustrations grow over a rapidly deteriorating economy and rising political tensions.

Political analyst Eldred Masunungure said the tensions are not likely to result in any immediate political changes as the 92-year-old Mugabe might hold on a little longer, but he warned that the free-falling economy could be the president's Achilles heel.

AP

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Bringing love to Nigeria's 'rejects'

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 02:41 AM PDT

Nigerian matchmaker Ugochukwu Michael says he has 7000 clients - all of them HIV-positive.

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Abuja - - Sitting in his dimly-lit office in the Nigerian capital, surrounded by files and boxes of condoms, matchmaker Ugochukwu Michael talks passionately about the part he has played in the marriages of around 100 couples in recent years.

While the popularity of dating apps and websites may make Michael's efforts to play Cupid seem old-fashioned, his matchmaking service stands out from the rest.

All of his clients are living with HIV.

"Sometimes, I spend days without sleeping," he said, his phone ringing non-stop as he explained how most calls come in the middle of the night when it is cheaper to call.

The 45-year-old started his service in 2012 with the desire to help those he describes as Nigeria's "rejects" after becoming disillusioned with widespread stigma towards people with HIV.

Michael says he has some 7,000 clients, ranging in age from 19 to 72. Six in seven of them are women.

He charges a one-off fee of 2,000 naira ($6, or about R83) for people who work, but his service is free for the unemployed.

"You will see a lot of improvement," Michael tells one caller. "Let's see how it will be before the end of the month."

The prevalence of HIV among adults in Nigeria is relatively low for sub-Saharan Africa, around one in 30 compared to one in five in South Africa, according to the UN Aids programme UNAIDS.

Yet discrimination towards Nigeria's some 3.5 million HIV-positive people is rife, and many struggle to enter university or find work, health experts and human rights activists say.

"Stigma is the obstacle to achieving the 90-90-90 agenda," John Idoko, director general of Nigeria's National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

By 2020, UNAIDS wants 90 percent of people with HIV to know their status, 90 percent of diagnosed people to be on treatment, and 90 percent of those on treatment to have suppressed levels of the virus in their bodies.

"HIV-positve sugar mommy"

After a failed attempt to migrate to Europe six years ago and the loss of his life savings from his job as a technician, Michael decided to volunteer with a Catholic organisation.

Helping out at a state hospital where nurses were reluctant to get too close to HIV-positive patients made Michael aware of the discrimination they faced daily.

"I encouraged the patients to help one another do things, like go to the toilet, since they all had one thing in common."

When the threat of Boko Haram forced him to move from the northeastern city of Damaturu to Abuja in 2012, Michael decided the time was right to launch his HIV matchmaking service.

Weary of trying to persuade government agencies to invest in his idea, he headed out into the streets of Abuja at night, hanging up around 100 banners to advertise his project.

"By the following morning, my phone started ringing - so many people were calling me," Michael said, scrolling through the dozens of texts he receives from his clients each day.

Some of the texts ask for medical or fertility advice, while one comes from a man looking for an "HIV-positive sugar mommy".

Not everyone approves of Michael's matchmaking efforts.

When people started tearing the banners down, Michael turned to bright red spray paint. Signs reading: "HIV positive? Need husband/wife?" can be seen alongside many major roads in Abuja.

"Strangers call me to express disdain for my work ... they accuse me of encouraging promiscuity," said the husband and father-of five, who declined to disclose if he has HIV or not.

Health before love

After an initial telephone conversation, most of Michael's clients insist on coming to see him in person to talk further.

"When they come, we just sit and chat," he said, adding that many of his patients are suicidal because of their HIV status.

Beyond setting up dates, Michael also ensures that every person he works with is registered with a specific hospital and that they are regularly taking their antiretroviral drugs.

"I cannot match-make anyone who is not on drugs - it is a lot of risk," Michael said, sitting in his office in front of a decorative wall hanging that reads: 'May hope encourage you'.

Michael also provides his clients with free condoms and booklets about HIV, and teaches them about safe sex. For people seeking medical advice, he refers them to a doctor.

Although based in Abuja, a photo of his advert posted on Facebook means people stretching from Rivers state in the south to the Borno in the northeast have signed up looking for love.

Flicking through several folders, Michael explains how he has a separate file for clients who have started seeing each other, another for those who have graduated to a serious relationship, and a different one for those who have married.

"I never attend weddings, he said, explaining how he was once embarrassed by the recognition he received at the marriage ceremony of one of the couples who met through his matchmaking.

In March this year, the Nigerian government signed into law a new version of the HIV/Aids Anti-Discrimination Act, which is designed to make it easier to understand.

Yet Michael said the law has had no impact on his service, or the thousands of HIV-positive people that he works with.

"Many people don't even know where to access drugs," he said. "They hear about these things but have no information.

"The enlightenment is not there - it is just not there."

Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change.

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Nigerian held for $60m email scam

Posted: 01 Aug 2016 01:34 AM PDT

A Nigerian - identified by Interpol only as "Mike" - has been arrested for masterminding scams worth more than $60 million.

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Cape Town - A 40-year-old Nigerian has been arrested for defrauding thousands of people worldwide through online scams worth more than $60 million, Interpol and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) said on Monday.

The man, identified by Interpol only as "Mike," is believed to be the leader of an international email scam targeting small to medium-sized businesses in countries including Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.

In one instance, a victim was conned into paying out $15.4 million dollars, according to Interpol and the EFCC.

The suspect was arrested in southern Nigeria.

He is thought to head a network of at least 40 fraudsters across Nigeria, Malaysia and South Africa, who provided malware and carried out the frauds, the agencies said.

He is also accused of laundering money in China, Europe and the US.

The 40-year-old faces charges including hacking, conspiracy and obtaining money under false pretences.

DPA

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