Museveni orders death penalty for convicted murderers in Uganda after brutal killing of nephew

There is a proposition from the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, for the courts of the land to mete out equal measures of punishments to persons who have perpetrated crimes, especially convicted murderers.

In a statement made on his official Twitter page, the president laid the blame at the feet of the country’s law enforcement agencies for what he described as their unprofessionalism at tackling crimes in the country.

The president made the statement in reference to the recent rise in violent crimes in the country, one of which claimed the life of his nephew, Joshua Rushegyera, reports Reuters.

In 2015, while attending a Judges’ Conference in the capital, Entebbe, the president called on the judges implement the death penalty instead of the unnecessarily lenient judgments they pass on murderers.

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that today, he is calling for the same punishments to be handed out to people who kill others.

The Reuters reports that crimes have soared, from killings to violent robberies and kidnappings for ransom, and these have stoked widespread public anger.

The most recent cases have prompted the president to rehash his call for the death penalty to be activated in cases of crimes. In Uganda, death is the maximum penalty for a range of crimes, including murder, treason and defilement, however, executions have been rare.

Last week, the nephew of the president was found lying on his back on the tarmac on an expressway near the capital, dead from gunshot wounds. His body was found near his parked vehicle where a woman, also dead from gunshot wounds, was in the back seat.

In the other recent case, the bodies of a woman working for a local non-governmental organization and her driver were found dumped in a swamp just east of the capital, Kampala. Their bodies were found two days after they were kidnapped in their own vehicle outside the gate of the woman’s home.

On that particular case, President Museveni laid the blame at the feet of police officers, accusing them of negligence and for not acting swiftly in using a recently installed CCTV system to trace and save them.

He has accordingly directed the arrest and trial of the officers on that case who were found to be negligent, pending their dismissal if found guilty.

“You may commit a crime, carelessly taking away the lives of others; however, you will also lose your own life,” Museveni said in a statement. “It must be an eye for eye”, reports Bloomberg.

According to the president, the country will introduce measures such as digital registration of all vehicles and motorcycles so that their movements are electronically tracked.

“We need to work on the courts,” Museveni said in his statement.

The Ugandan police, who have also denied corruption claims levelled against them by the public, have said that murders in the country have mainly been conducted by people riding motorcycles.

“Those people who willfully kill others should be sentenced to death and hanged under the law,” President Museveni stated in 2015 while speaking with judges in the country.