Police record video of Mwenda interrogation

Criminal Investigators yesterday(Thursday April, 29 2008) video taped an interrogation session with The Independent news magazine’s Managing Editor Andrew Mwenda and two of his staff. This could be the first time suspects are questioned in front of camera.“I suspect this video recording has specifically been requested by President Yoweri (Museveni) himself or people close to him,” Mr Mwenda told journalists soon after emerging from a three-hour interrogation session at the CID headquarters at Kibuli, Kampala. The Independent’s Consulting Editor, Charles Odoobo Bichachi, was also separately interrogated on video, but the third journalist, John Njoroge, who is a reporter/writer with the bi-weekly publication, was asked to report today for questioning. Detectives pressed the journalists to reveal their sources of information on whom they based their serialised stories of some 17 people who claimed they were tortured in illegal detention centres commonly referred to as Safe Houses. The journalists were interrogated by Mr Charles Kataratambi, the officer in charge of the media and political squad at CID, who was assisted by a one Musedde and Sgt John Ayeko, who shot the video. “The thrust of the interrogations was about a one Masaba and Ronald Kasekende, some of the 17 torture victims serialised in the Independent,” the journalists’ lawyer, Bob Kasango said. He said police extended his client’s bond to Friday, May 2, the day he suspects they would to be charged by the police and probably taken to court. “I do not know the charges, but reading from their bond papers, the police has indicated sedition and being in possession of seditious material,” he said. Mr Mwenda said police asked for audio recordings of the interviews with the alleged torture suspects. “The police officers wanted us to give them the tapes but I told them that it was a Canadian journalist Wendy Glausser who has the tapes and she is back in Canada,” he said. “I don’t collect information for keeping, they are for publishing. So if they want the information they can buy our publication and get it,” he said. He said torture is against international laws and the Ugandan Constitution and their intention in publishing the torture stories was to end abusive acts. “If we are arrested, it means the government is involved in torture. We are working for the forces of democracy against the forces of dictatorship,” Mr Mwenda said. Security agents stormed The Independent’s offices on Saturday morning and arrested three journalists on allegations of holding seditious material. The operatives took away three computers, four diskettes, one micro-cassette tape and several assorted documents. The raid came a week before World Press Freedom Day, May 3. It also comes as several journalists at Daily and Sunday Monitor, and The Weekly Observer have cases pending in court.