By Witness Radio team
The Magistrate court in Kiryandongo district has dismissed a threatening violence case against the eight community land rights defenders after close to 3 years of trial due to the failure of the prosecution side to adduce enough evidence.
This milestone comes after the prosecution’s evidence failed to pin the defenders on the alleged charges. Before the dismissal of the case, after a month, the defenders had been trekking to Kiryandongo Magistrates Court as part of the Court bail bond requirements for the trial.
The trial that began in 2020 has been marred with unnecessary adjustments and changes of hearing magistrates. Similarly, the prosecution needed to produce witnesses resulting in constant adjustments.
In her ruling, on 31st of May 2023, the Magistrate pointed out that the prosecution did not produce enough evidence to warrant the accused persons to defense causing the discharge of the threatening violence case.
On the 17th of September 2020, the eight appeared before the magistrate and were all charged with threatening violence. Earlier on the 4th of September 2020, the prosecution had alleged that they threatened to harm a police officer and workers of Great Season SMC Limited while at Kisalanda.
Before the arrest of the defenders who included Mwawula, Ramu Ndahimana, Samuel Kusiima, Martin Munyansia, Martin Haweka, Amos Wafula, Eliot Talemwa, and George Rwakabisha, the group was first assaulted and beaten by Great Seasons SMC Limited workers and Kiryandongo police officers.
Their arrest also happened barely a few days after the release of the Kiryandongo report “Landgrabs at gunpoint”, which accused security agencies and multinationals of using violence to grab communities’ land without following the due process of acquisition.
The Great Season SMC Limited is among the multinationals highlighted in the report participating in land grabbing. The company is owned by a Sudanese businessman based in Dubai.
Others include Agilis Partners Limited, owned by US businessmen and backed by several foreign development agencies and “social impact” investors, and Kiryandongo Sugar Limited owned by a Mauritius-based RAI family.
The eight community land rights defenders have been abducted, tortured, persecuted, and their activities criminalized by multinational companies since 2017 when they started operating large-scale agricultural businesses on the communities’ land.
“We have been exhausted with constant movements and the longevity of the journeys. It has been both time and financially-consuming for us to travel to court every two weeks in a month to be tried on charges that were framed against us. We thank God and our lawyers for winning this battle, and we are also looking forward to fighting the remaining battle of regaining our grabbed land.”
In less than a year, this is the second case against human rights defenders to be dismissed by the Magistrates Court in Kiryandongo for lack of evidence.
In August 2022, Kiryandongo Magistrates Court dropped a criminal trespass case against Mr. Otyaluk David, a Nyamuntende community land rights defender for want of prosecution.
Mr. Otyaluk is one of the land rights defenders mobilizing their communities against a Kiryandongo Sugar Limited land grab.
This is yet another blow against multinational companies criminalizing the works of human rights defenders in the Kiryandongo district. They intentionally do this to weaken these poor people to surrender their land which the companies want to use for agribusiness. And as Witness Radio, we are ready to defend and protect both defenders and their communities.” A Witness Radio – Uganda lawyer revealed.
