Ugandan UN judge jailed in UK for 'egregious' forced labour offence
Lydia Mugambe, a judge of Uganda's high court since 2013, was appointed in 2023 to be a judge for the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which performs functions of previous tribunals relating to war crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Prosecutors said Mugambe, 50, used her status in the "most egregious way" by tricking a young Ugandan woman to come to the UK in 2022 to work as a maid without payment.
Mugambe was charged under the UK's Modern Slavery Act with conspiring with John Leonard Mugerwa, then Uganda's deputy high commissioner, to get the victim into the UK by lying on her visa application.
Mugambe was also charged with facilitating travel with a view to exploitation, forcing someone to work and conspiracy to intimidate her victim to stop her giving evidence.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TimesLIVE
21 hours ago
- TimesLIVE
France acknowledges role in Cameroon's struggle for independence
French President Emmanuel Macron formally acknowledged France's role in violent repression during Cameroon's struggle for independence in a letter signed on July 30 but only disclosed on Tuesday. The letter, addressed to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, follows the findings of a joint Franco-Cameroonian commission that investigated France's role and involvement against the fight for independence between 1945 and 1971. The Cameroon government did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment. Cameroon was a German colony until it was split between Britain and France after World War 1. Under UN trusteeship, the French-administered area gained independence in 1960 while the southern British Cameroons voted to join French Cameroon in a federation in 1961. "The commission's historians clearly established that a war took place in Cameroon, during which French colonial authorities and military forces committed various forms of violent repression in several regions of the country, a war that continued beyond 1960 with France's support for actions taken by the independent Cameroonian authorities," Macron said in the letter.
eNCA
2 days ago
- eNCA
EU ready to do plastic pollution deal 'but not at any cost'
GENEVA - The European Union is ready to do a deal to land a groundbreaking treaty on plastic pollution, but not at any cost, the EU's environment commissioner insisted Tuesday. With little over two days left to strike a global accord in talks at the UN in Geneva, Jessika Roswall said it was "time" to clinch a deal between oil-producing countries and more ambitious nations, including EU states. Five previous rounds of talks over the past two and a half years have failed to seal an agreement, including a supposedly final round in South Korea late last year. The current talks in Geneva opened a week ago but are due to close on Thursday. "The EU is ready to do a deal but not at any cost," Roswall told reporters. "We do like plastic... and we will continue to need it. However, we don't like plastic pollution and it's time to end plastic pollution as quickly as possible," the commissioner said. She said any treaty should give businesses the certainty of a clear global framework in which to operate. A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group -- including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Iran -- want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management. The EU and others want to go much further by reining in plastic production -- which on current trends is set to triple by 2060 -- and by phasing out certain especially toxic chemicals. - Drama in the pipeline - Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke admitted that the "wide gap" between the rival camps was making the negotiations a challenge but said the work of tackling plastic pollution "will only get harder the longer we wait. So now's the time". "There's going to be a whole lot more drama in the days to come," he said, "but our goal is this drama should end up in a deal", he said, speaking alongside Roswall at the United Nations. He said all parties, including the EU, had to re-examine their red lines and see where they could tweak them in the interests of landing a deal by Thursday. "If we all stick to our red lines then a deal is impossible," he said. "So we have to look at those red lines and we have to negotiate and compromise -- because we will be worse off if we don't succeed in making a deal.
IOL News
3 days ago
- IOL News
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Exposes the Simmering Inequities in the UN System
A young boy watches as his paper lantern floats out on the Motoyasu River past the Atomic Bomb Dome (back R) to mark the 80th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, in the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 2025. Image: AFP Abbey Makoe The first week of every August in history exposes, in my view, the depths of the failures and deep-seated false pretences of international diplomacy as a vehicle for civil resolution of differences and a consensus-building mechanism. It was on August 6 and 9, respectively, 80 years ago, when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki within three days apart, killing and maiming tens of thousands of innocent people in an unprecedented and unexpected jiffy. Many around the world often place tremendous importance on the total fatalities from the nuclear bombardment of the two Japanese cities in 1945. However, what I think of greater significance is the world's response in the aftermath all these years later. It is in the lackadaisical global response that I take umbrage. The disingenuity and deceitful nature and form of diplomatic engagements that have followed the dreadful events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have steadfastly exposed what social scientists refer to as the disordered faults of progress in the post-WWII international world architecture built on the cooperative nature of the UN Charter. Every year on August 6 and 9, Japan holds 'Peace Ceremonies' in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a painful period of annual reflection for the entire Japanese nation. It is a time when historical wounds are reopened. History revisited with tears and heartbreak. Over and above, it is a time to mitigate the pains of lingering yet unanswered questions: Why did the US bomb the cities and secondly, perhaps more importantly, why has the US not apologised throughout 80 years? For the uninitiated, let me recap: From Hiroshima alone, then a city of 350,000 people, America's atomic explosion killed a total of 140,000 innocent civilians. In Nagasaki, 74,000 people perished shortly after the US pilots had dropped the atomic bombs on the city. This year, Russia, a leading global nuclear power, expressed its exasperation with the seeming double standards in international relations that have permeated every sphere of society, including the highest office at the UN. In a Global North-dominated world order, led by the US through its hegemony dating back to immediately after the end of World War II in 1945, the narrative around Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been dominated by the West, which has refrained from blaming the US for the atomic bombings. Responding to Washington's failure to apologise for the unprecedented atomic bombardment in Japan, and the world's failure to demand accountability, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was vividly livid. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ She said Western politicians deliberately echo one another, consciously avoiding mentioning that it was the US that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead, added Zakharova, they push a line that says 'both the US and Russia had failed to learn lessons from those mistakes'. She called it an unbelievable fake narrative. 'And yet the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres,' she charged, followed suit, stating on the occasion of this tragedy that fully omitted any mention of the United States.' She added that the narrative was intended to erase the Hiroshima and Nagasaki guilt from the US, and in doing so, they apportion blame to Russia. It is the West's nuclear hypocrisy, she said. Zakharova further asked: 'What does lack of condemnation mean for the US? It creates a comfort zone for them. It doesn't push them out of it. It keeps them in it so they don't have to wonder over questions like: Do you regret it? Would you do it again?' Emmanuel Pastreich, President of the Asia Institute, said the 80th commemoration of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings should mark a time for truth and accountability. He said the 1945 bombings 'weren't militarily necessary – they were a demonstration – a test of power, a message to the world and a geopolitical gambit targeting the USSR'. He added: 'Eighty years later, the US still refuses to apologise, clinging to nuclear dominance as a rickety crutch. Instead of disarmament, they have modernised those weapons, spending trillions while science and ethics decay.' The Western narrative over Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to be domineering to such an extent that, now a close ally of the US and a member of the US-led G7, it finds itself egg-dancing around the authentic history of bombings. At this week's ceremony at the atomic memorial site of the tragedy, the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba could only express mourning for '100,000 precious lives' but never named the US, the nation that everybody knows had dropped the bombs. Such is an example of the manifestation of bogus diplomacy that dominates the US-led unipolar world order. This blatant attempt to misrepresent history cannot succeed. It has been correctly documented by upright historians, and instead of tweaking the naked facts, the US and the West would do well to own up and do good by the people of Japan, who still hurt to this day. In an ideal international world order based on the UN Charter of equality and mutual regard for one another, the spectre of unilateralism would never have succeeded to the point where the G7 has all but replaced the UN governance system.
