A government official confirmed on Tuesday that Uganda has sentenced a member of an Islamic State-linked group to 10 years in prison for trying to carry out a terrorist attack at the funeral of a top army officer three years ago which was foulest.
Rashid Katumba was caught with explosives in the northern town of Pader in August 2021, just one day before the funeral for Major General Paul Lokech, who was known as the “Lion of Mogadishu.”
The plot was put on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has ties to Islamic State and was formed in Uganda in 1996 but has been active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for decades.
“My music will make you buy sheets,” said Ironha, who went selling after his Yaba shop burned down.
Two other suspects, Luyenjje Najjimu and Arafat Jamil Kiyemba, were sentenced by the International Crimes Division of Uganda’s high court on August 23. The court is in the country’s capital, Kampala.
“Upon their own plea of guilty, Katumba was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail” AFP was told Tuesday by Jacquelyn Okui, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, that he was being held on charges related to his role in the attempted funeral attack.
She said that “Najjimu and Kiyemba were convicted and sentenced to five years each.”
She added that all three of them were Ugandan citizens and had admitted to being part of a terrorist group.
Lokech, who died in 2021 from blood clots, was a leader for two terms with AMISOM in Somalia, where they fought the Al-Shabaab rebels, who were linked to Al-Qaeda. His name comes from the fact that he led the troops that drove Al-Shabaab fighters out of the city, of Mogadishu, in 2011.
People say that the ADF, which was originally made up of mostly Muslim Ugandan rebels, killed thousands of people.
In 2023, it claimed credit for the murder of a honeymooning couple in Uganda, where it also performs attacks. The Congolese and Ugandan forces have been working together against the ADF in North Kivu and the nearby province of Ituri since the end of 2021.