PART II
Furious, the General’s agents promised to teach Ivan a lesson. Shortly thereafter, all hell broke loose upon Ivan. According to Mzee Kaweesi, it started with threatening phone calls from former Kampala South RPC, Siraje Bakaleke. In the photo is Bakaleke visiting one of the suspected murder scenes.
Then, at the beginning of Sept. 2017, Ivan’s home is raided by police officers. Led by who? You guessed right: Bakaleke. Ivan gets arrested as the prime suspect in the women murders.
On Dec. 29 2018, Saturday Vision had run a story on Bakaleke – then on run for allegedly kidnapping and robbing Asian investors. Mbu Bakaleke spirited away with over UGX 200M and several luxury cars belonging to Ivan, which they hadn't declared as exhibits in Ivan’s prosecution.
Reports claimed that other assets of Ivan’s went missing after his arrest. Mbu all money on his bank A/Cs was withdrawn and shared amongst senior security officers. Most of the 8 prosecution witnesses presented against Ivan were Police Officers – Bakaleke’s juniors.
Meanwhile, during Ivan’s trial, Ronah revealed that security operatives had offered her Shs250m to testify against her husband that he had murdered his 9 y/o son – who was actually alive – for wealth. Mzee Kaweesa later corroborated Ronah’s statement.
Note that by that time, regime Spokespeople had already blamed the murders on “practitioners of witchcraft” who use human sacrifice to generate financial wealth. Mbu Ivan was using the murdered women’s uteri to trap Nile Perch 🤣😅.
In Jan 2018, NTV ran a story, 'Terror on the Lake'. The story accused UPDF's Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU) of terrorizing fishing villages around L. Victoria for “illegal fishing methods". It quoted families of 10+ victims who accused FPU of torturing their loved ones to death.
One of the witnesses recounted, “Capt. Alituha Stephen & four soldiers came to the Masjid & ordered us out. I was beaten, taken to the shores, and ordered to enter the lake as the beating continued. They told me I was lucky because the President had ordered that I be shot dead”.
Another woman, Zakia Naigaga, narrated, “…they started beating me. They even tried to strangle me, saying the President gave them guns to kill me.” But FPU rejected these allegations, explaining that “when we go after them, they try to flee and drown in the lake”.
In its “Fayilo Ku Meeza” show, Bukedde TV reported systematic intimidation, torture & murder by the military of fishermen who dealt in fish maw. The Monitor also accused FPU of “joining the lucrative trade … under the guise of ridding the lake of bad fishing practices”.
In Nov. 2018, the New Vision ran a story in which local fishermen claimed that FPU had “confiscated people’s property including and forced them to relocate”. The Paper later also reported that a proposal had been finalized to prohibit foreign investors from exporting fish maw.
Long story short, on 24 Jan 2019, High Court Judge Wilson Kwesiga acquitted Ivan on a “no-case to answer”. In a stern Judgment, Justice Musene declared the entire trial a useless wastage of public resources.
Per Justice Musene, the evidence against Ivan could not stand even in a chicken-thief case. “It doesn't even qualify as evidence of reasonable suspicion. Police did a bad job. [Ivan's] Prosecution was in bad faith because they [knew] they had no evidence but still prosecuted".
Ivan's out of jail but his life will never be the same again. For nearly two years, he was jailed-without-bail and robbed of his hard-earned wealth. There're most probably many other Ugandans facing similar injustice. Most importantly, the real perpetrators of the murders will probably never be brought to book. At least not when M7 and his cronies are still in power. It is for stories like Ivan's and the victims' that #WeAreRemoving_A_Dictator!