By Witness Radio team
A magistrate court sitting in Hoima City in mid-western Uganda has granted bail to six cattlemen but, will remain in prison due to other criminal charges framed against them.
The six cattlemen are part of a group of over 20 cattlemen that have been slapped with multiple criminal charges by the Hoima City resident state attorney for opposing an illegal land eviction that is taking away their grazing land for the Tilenga Feeder Pipeline Component.
They are part of a larger community of 2500 people that have legally occupied and cultivated their land measuring 1294.99 hectares at Kapapi North, Kapapi Central, Waaki North, Waaki South, and Lunga villages in Kapapi and Kiryatete sub-counties in Hoima District since the 1950s, which is gazetted as public land.
This follows Witness Radio – Uganda’s intervention with its legal team to provide criminal defense to victims of irresponsible oil investment. The majority of the cattlemen in prison were arbitrarily arrested, maliciously charged, and sent to prison a few days before a violent and forceful land eviction.
On 10th February 2023 at 1:00 am, Hoima District Police, soldiers from Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF), with the assistance of security guards from Magnum, a Private Security Company descended on the community violently and illegally evicted them without a court order.
Kataza Samuel is granted bail on both charges of malicious damage to property and stealing cattle; Mulega Eria on both charges of criminal trespass and stealing cattle, Karongo Stephen on both threatening violence and stealing cattle; Rangira Stephen on both threatening violence and stealing cattle; Karongo Edward on both charges of theft and stealing cattle while Mbombo Stephen has been granted bail on threatening violence charge.
On a sad note, the six plus other cattlemen in prison cannot get out and enjoy their freedoms because they are still facing many criminal charges namely assaulting Tilenga Feeder Pipeline Component workers, new charges of threatening violence, and malicious damage to property among others.
Each of the victims was granted a cash bail of one million shillings (1,000,000=) about 273.9 US dollars on their first charge while on the second charge, each was granted a cash bail of three hundred thousand Shillings (300,000=) about 80.43 US Dollars. Sureties were conditioned to a noncash bail of twenty million shillings about 5,479.4 US dollars.
According to the 2022 bail guidelines, if an offense is triable by both the High Court and Magistrates Court and the accused person has been on remand for 60 days before the commencement of trial, the person shall be released on bail on such conditions that the court considers reasonable.
Bail conditions; court ordered the six to report back for their bail on the 20th of June 2023.
However, bail applications for other criminal charges have been fixed to be heard on the 2nd of June 2023 by different trial magistrates.
