2010 Kampala Suicide Bombers Appeal Court Sentence

All seven men implicated in the 2010 Kampala twin bombings in Uganda have appealed against their jail sentence, media reports indicate. So far, five of the men – Issa Ahmed Luyima, Hussein Hassan Agad (alias Hussein Agade), Idris Magondu (alias Christopher Magondu), Habib Suleiman Njoroge and Mohamed Ali Mohamed – have been sentenced to life imprisonment for partaking in various attempted suicide attacks. The rest of the attackers each face a 50-year jail sentence for their individual crimes.

Described as the worst bomb attack in Uganda since the US embassy bombings in 1998, the twin bombings are feared to have killed 74 people. Somali-based Islamist movement al-Shabaab has laid claim to the attacks. So far, the reason for the attacks remains sketchy; media reports claim Uganda was being punished for leading the African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) in Mogadishu against al-Shabaab militants.

“We thank the mujahideens that carried out the attack. We are sending a message to Uganda and Burundi, if they do not take out their Amisom troops from Somalia, blasts will continue and it will happen in Bujumbura [Burundi’s capital] too,” al-Shabaab spokesperson Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters in the Somali capital.

The five men who been ordered to spend the rest of their lives in prison have described the sentence as “harsh and excessive.”