Uganda plans law to allow military prosecution of civilians
By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA (Reuters) - The Ugandan government intends to introduce a law to allow military tribunals to try civilians for certain offences even after the practice was banned by the Supreme Court.
Human rights activists and opposition politicians have long accused President Yoweri Museveni's government of using military courts to prosecute opposition leaders and supporters on politically motivated charges. The government denies the accusations.
In January Uganda's Supreme Court delivered a ruling that banned military prosecutions of civilians, which forced the government to transfer the trial of opposition politician and former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye to civilian courts.
If successfully enacted, the new law could allow the government to take Besigye back to a military court martial.
The law has been drafted and is awaiting cabinet approval before it is introduced in parliament, Nobert Mao, the minister for justice and constitutional affairs, told parliament late on Thursday.
The law will define "exceptional circumstances under which a civilian may be subject to military law", he said.
Besigye, a veteran political rival of Museveni, has been in detention for nearly five months on what his lawyers say are politically motivated charges.
He was detained in neighbouring Kenya in November and subsequently transferred to Uganda, where he was charged in a military court-martial with illegal possession of firearms among other offences.
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(d) Recalling the Board of Governors' resolutions of 19 June 2020... , of 8 June 2022 ... , of 17 November 2022 ..., of 5 June 2024 ..., and of 21 November 2024 ..., which called upon Iran to fully cooperate with the Agency and decided that it is essential and urgent, in order to ensure verification of the non-diversion of nuclear material, that Iran act to fulfil its legal obligations and, with a view to clarifying all outstanding issues, take all specified actions without delay, (e) Regretting that despite the above resolutions by the Board and numerous opportunities provided by the Director General since 2019, Iran has failed to provide the co-operation required under its Safeguards Agreement, impeding Agency verification activities, sanitizing locations, and repeatedly failing to provide the Agency with technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at several undeclared locations in Iran or information on the current location(s) of nuclear material and/or of contaminated equipment, instead stating, inconsistent with the Agency's findings, that it has declared all nuclear material and activities required under its Safeguards Agreement, (f) Noting the Director General's conclusion ... that Iran did not declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three undeclared locations in Iran, specifically, Lavisan-Shian, Varamin, and Turquzabad, and that, because of the lack of technically credible answers by Iran, the Agency is not in a position to determine whether the nuclear material at these undeclared locations in Iran has been consumed, mixed with other declared material, or is still outside of Safeguards, (g) Noting with concern the Agency's conclusion that these undeclared locations were part of an undeclared, structured programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s, and that some of these activities used undeclared nuclear material, (h) Noting with concern the Agency's conclusion that Iran retained unknown nuclear material and/or heavily contaminated equipment, and other assets, arising from the former undeclared structured nuclear programme, at Turquzabad in the period 2009 until 2018, after which items were removed from the location, the whereabouts of which remain unknown, ... 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