{UAH} EXCLUSIVE: Faces of Terror: The Men Directing ISO Operations
|
5:21 AM |
No comments |
EXCLUSIVE: Faces of Terror: The Men Directing ISO Operations
On December 26, 1999, Lt Juuko Sserwanga was employed as an intelligence officer by the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) when he received instructions to drive with a colleague, Mathias Gaira, to Entebbe International Airport.
Juuko had firm orders to arrest a Pakistani national called Nasar Ahmed.
At the time, ISO was a very powerful body with vital assets spread across the country.
The organ had received information that Nasar would be arriving at the airport that morning on a Gulf flight from Dubai.
The Pakistani was a suspected terrorist.
At the same time, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Uganda Police Force had received similar intelligence information that the same Pakistani would arrive at the airport with prohibited drugs (cocaine).
Armed with pistols, three CID officers went to the airport to arrest Nasar, if they found him with the drugs.
After protracted searches by both the officers of ISO and CID, a bag was found on the conveyer belt where the suspect had deliberately left it.
Both ISO and the CID officers wanted both the bag and the suspect.
Eventually the CID officers succeeded in retaining the bag which was found to contain the cocaine while the ISO officers took away the Pakistani.
Despite various assurances by Juuko that CID officers would find the suspect in Kampala, he disappeared and was never arrested by the police.
The judges said in this case, Juuko had the duty to hand over the suspect to the police for further investigation.
Yet, when the suspect was released by the police at the airport to ISO, he got into contact with Juuko and told him his second bag had remained on the conveyor belt.
When they stormed back inside the airport looking for the bag, they informed the police that the suspect had remained outside under the control of their agents.
Before the cocaine was discovered, the policemen demanded the suspect be produced to witness the opening of his bag.
It was then that Juuko started saying he had "already left the airport" and that it was "useless" to bring him back.
They assured the policemen that they would take them to where he was to stay in Kampala. In the end he disappeared.
Koreta cracks the whip
An investigation done by this website shows that after police complained about Juuko's conduct in 1999, the then Deputy Director General, ISO, Gen Ivan Koreta ordered the officer's arrest.
He eventually was kicked from ISO.
Buganda Road Court, where Juuko was charged, ruled that when the ISO officers arrived at the airport, they appeared "more concerned with the luggage the suspect was carrying" than the suspect they were meant to arrest.
Juuko and his colleagues appealed to the Court of Appeal which upheld the conviction and sent them to Luzira Prison.
"Even when they were shown that Nasar Ahmed was carrying a whitish powder likely to be cocaine, they refused to surrender him to the police. Before they left the airport, they knew as a fact that Naser Ahmed had carried prohibited drugs into Uganda," the Court of Appeal ruled in 2009.
The story of Juuko mirrors the quality of informers currently being facilitated by ISO to help in combating crime.
With more changes in the leadership of ISO, Juuko always found his way back into the system by volunteering as an informer.
It was not until Kaka was appointed ISO boss that Juuko became more powerful. Kaka appears to have trusted his network, much as officials at the security organ believe this was a grave mistake.
ChimpReports understands that Juuko is currently serving as the field operations official reporting directly to Col Kaka Bagyenda.
But he has in recent months been accused of human rights abuses and coaching witnesses at a 'safe house' run by ISO in Kyengera, Wakiso District.
Early this year, Juuko was accused by AIGP Andrew Kaweesi's girlfriend Christine Mbabazi of threatening her life.
"Juuko tried to force himself in a hotel room where I was detained by ISO, saying he would kill me if I fell short of framing Gen Kale Kayihura in Kaweesi's murder," said Mbabazi.
Her whereabouts are currently unknown after President Museveni directed Special Forces to take over her security.
Juuko was also accused by Ali Kabanda, a former police detective, of engaging in acts that threatened his life while in custody at Kyengera. Kabanda, who confirmed this story to ChimpReports, fled to exile.
"Some of the things happening here are a shock to us," said a concerned security official.
"You can't have a convicted criminal directing professional and experienced officers on what to do. Every day, Col Kaka is being misled by Juuko to make mistakes which is very unfortunate."
Heavy price
While criminal informants can be important investigative tools, absorbing them in the mainstream structures of security institution carries some serious costs as they often continue to commit crimes, while the information they provide is infamously unreliable.
Research shows the practice of trading information for guilt, as is the case with Paddy Sserunjogi a.k.a Sobi, a hard-core criminal turned ISO informer, is so pervasive that it has literally become a thriving business with innocent people paying the price.
As it was with Police's Nickson Agasirwe, a criminal who joined the law enforcement body as an informer, wrong suspects were held and tortured to confess to crimes as a strategy for him to shine among peers and retain his job.
Agasirwe was accused of coaching witnesses and torture
In extreme circumstances, suspects can be convicted based on the fabricated testimony.
The Juuko scenario is evidence that criminal informants often continue to commit crimes while working for the government.
To its embarrassment, the Secret Service once discovered that one of their top former informants, Albert Gonzalez, was running one of the largest credit card data theft rings in the country.
Gonzalez had used his connections with the government to promote his illegal activities and also to tip off other hackers on how to avoid detection.
George Sharma
The second operative who has featured in several operations during Col Kaka's reign is George Sharma.
A Private of UPDF, registration number RA /219544, Sharma was attached to 2nd Division, 307 Brigade, 63 Battalion.
He deserted the army and is a wanted man.
Defence spokesperson Big Richard Karemire said he needed to check for Sharma's particulars but quickly added that desertion is a "service offence."
He emphasised: "Any act which contravenes the UPDF Act and Code of contact is punishable and desertion is one of such."
Records indicate Sharma left school in Senior six at Kololo Secondary School. Interestingly, he is currently serving as an ISO "IT expert".
Sharma's name appears on the search certificate for Gen Kayihura's residence in Muyenga. Multiple contacts told us he could hardly record serial numbers of gadgets obtained from the residence.
"It's only in Uganda where a deserter searches the home of a serving General and also attends meetings to brief the President on security," said a high ranking official briefed about this development.
He also was captured in a CCTV video among other ISO operatives as they raided and searched MTN's Data Centre in Mutundwe.
Sharma and other agents forced an Engineer to disconnect four servers in the data center, all of which was captured on CCTV.
The disconnection, according to MTN, impacted a number of services including; processing of call data details and resolution of customer queries; processing of service information for different MTN products, as well as processing of business reports.
MTN described the raid as an "act of illegal trespass" and revealed that the company has already filed a case of "illegal intrusion" to police and still awaited investigations.
Such stories of crime and violence illustrate the pervasive and complex role that criminal informants play in our justice system.
While informants can be a valuable investigative tool, offering the government a powerful weapon against criminal organizations and hard-to-crack cases, their actions come with significant costs.
Already, there is concern the raid on MTN and the CCTV footage showing operatives tampering with servers will discourage investors from investing in data storage in the country; preferring secure places abroad.
Legal experts say information obtained from MTN data centre without a court order would not be admissible in courts of law, rendering the raid a waste of time and resources.
The ISO men inside MTN data centre in Mutundwe (Photo: ChimpReports)
Uganda Law Society President Peter Kinobe stressed that the need for any government agency to gain access to any property or information from the public using "heavily armed men" is uncalled for, considering that the same could have been accessed lawfully.
He further emphasised that "The era of accessing information at gun point is long past. The NRM Government has prided itself on its ability to ensure that security agencies do not misuse the gun or turn the gun against people."
Observers say Kaka would have avoided an embarrassment had he contacted lawyers or used professional agents to pick the much-needed data from MTN.
"It is time for this state of affairs to change because the consistent use of criminal informants determines the outcome of thousands of investigations and cases every year in Uganda, costing the taxpayer billions of shillings and touching millions of lives," said Joseph Ahimbisibwe, a crime researcher in Kampala.
"Informers with a dark history should no longer be permitted to operate off-the-record and in the shadows."
While MTN has previously been accused of falsifying data to cheat on revenues from telephone calls, Kinobe said, "accessing the MTN data center with no court order but instead using guns is most unacceptable. Remembering our history, ISO should avoid the behavior and conduct of the former State Research Bureau."
Simon Peter Odongo
Days before Gen Kayihura was arrested, President Museveni was handed a recording of the former police chief's voice.
The recording indicated that Kayihura had said "thank you very much" after being told that AIGP Kaweesi had been killed.
The recording was on Simon Peter Odongo's iPad.
It is suspected this could be one of the pieces of evidence ISO intends to rely on to cause the prosecution of Kayihura over Kaweesi's death.
Museveni is said to have asked an Independent team of intelligence experts to review the recordings and confirm their authenticity.
From YouTube Videos, it appears the recording was a cut and paste work from Kayihura's press briefing at Kulambiro on March 17. (https://youtu.be/H_hiha4uw50 See the beginning 36 seconds about… assistant inspector general of police Andrew Felix Kaweesi…" and https://youtu.be/U1-TWappO_I See the end … "thank you very much"
It remains unclear if Odongo manufactured the evidence but lawyers representing Kayihura have since cautioned ISO against fabricating the evidence to implicate their client.
KAA lawyer Jet Tumwebaze told press on July 19 that, "ISO from the start was involved in forgery of evidence, that's what is disturbing Kale Kayihura."
"We have invited the intelligence community to reject this evidence but more is being matured by day. Gen. Kale Kayihura believes in the military handling of this matter, he believes the people he has been working with are intelligent and can handle this," he added.
"If ISO is fostering false information about a general, how about an ordinary person?" he wondered.
Alfred Iduso
In December 2017, it emerged that highly sensitive information was stolen from ISO, compelling Col Kaka to commission an investigation.
The stolen data, which included special security reports, was kept on a hard disc at a facility run by a controversial cyber unit headed by Richard Kanzira.
ISO pointed fingers at a one Alfred Idusso as the main suspect much as he later denied the accusation in a message to ChimpReports.
Idusso was among the so-called special hackers recruited by ISO for espionage and hacking missions.
He also was among the hackers who compiled a report for Col Kaka showing billions of shillings had been stolen from Bank of Uganda by hacking into its financial system and transferring it to banks in Malaysia.
The likes of Idusso further alleged that Maj Gen Jim Muhwezi and Treasury Secretary, Mr Keith Muhakanizi were part of the mission to hack BoU systems with the view of raising funds to undermine President Museveni.
Kaka would later use this information to inform Museveni about a plot to remove him from power by Muhwezi using money stolen from BoU.
Museveni summoned Mutebile who caused an investigation into the matter.
It was established that Kaka's report was based on falsehoods as there weren't any funds unscrupulously wired from BoU systems to foreign banks.
Mutebile also informed Museveni that the alleged recipient banks "do not exist in Malaysia."
How Idusso and his team continued working for the organ after this scandal was a miracle.
Indeed, Idusso and his colleagues continued to run an office for "special work" supervised by ISO.
It's alleged Idusso's team accessed key government information including particulars of all Ugandans registered for national identification cards.
Government has since denied reports that confidential data submitted to and in possession of the National Identification and registration Authority (NIRA) landed into wrong hands.
"The established procedures restrict access to data to specific offices at NIRA and no person's other than those stated in the law can access the confidential information," NIRA said in a recent statement.
But reports that individuals picked from Kampala streets were granted access to sensitive information raises concerns about security agencies' seriousness in protecting confidential data.
Confinement
The Uganda Law Society recently wrote to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to take action against Col Frank for abducting people and holding them incommunicado for months.
The Movit Products boss, Simpson Birungi was kept in detention for more than a month despite a court order directing his release.
Abduction with intent to confine is contrary to Section 244 of the Penal Code Act Cap 120 while wrongfully concealing an abducted person contravenes Section 247 of the Penal Code Act and Wrongful confinement is also breach of Section 248 of the Penal Code Act.
ULS President Kinobe said then the "continued illegal detention" of Simpson by ISO contrary to the express orders of the High Court, was a "matter of grave concern."
Movit Boss Simpson Birungi
He said the fact that ISO "seemingly operates above the law, the constitution and the courts is a deeply worrying trend that needs to be resolved quickly."
Insiders say the criminal informers were used to the culture of holding and torturing suspects for months if not years in total breach of the law.
Under Section 11 of the Security Organisations Act, it is a crime for an employee of ISO, including the Director General to "detain or confine any person".
Kinobe said the behavior of arrest and detention by ISO operatives is not only illegal but amounts to "behavior prejudicial to a security organization" and attracts a prison term of ten years.
Multiple officials contacted for this story said Kaka could have underestimated the impact of relying on criminal informers, a situation that threatens to cripple the institution with devastating results.
Disclaimer:Everyone posting to this Forum bears the sole responsibility for any legal consequences of his or her postings, and hence statements and facts must be presented responsibly. Your continued membership signifies that you agree to this disclaimer and pledge to abide by our Rules and Guidelines.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment