Five men with Congo rebel ties charged over attempted murder of Uganda minister

Uganda on Thursday charged five more men linked to a Congo-based Islamist rebel group with murder, terrorism and attempted murder offences related to a foiled plot last month to assassinate a minister who is the country's former military chief. Men riding on motorcycles fired dozens of rounds into a vehicle carrying the minister, Katumba Wamala, as he drove through a suburb of the capital Kampala in the early morning hours of June 1.

Uganda on Thursday charged five more men linked to a Congo-based Islamist rebel group with murder, terrorism, and attempted murder offenses related to a foiled plot last month to assassinate a minister who is the country's former military chief.

Men riding on motorcycles fired dozens of rounds into a vehicle carrying the minister, Katumba Wamala, as he drove through a suburb of the capital Kampala in the early morning hours of June 1. The attack killed Katumba's daughter who was with him in the car as well as his driver. Katumba was injured while his bodyguard emerged unscathed and was credited with saving his life.

A charge sheet issued by the judiciary on Thursday showed five more men had been charged with multiple offenses stemming from the attack. Two men had already been charged over the attack. The motivation for the attack was "to intimidate the public or a section of the public and for political, religious, social and economic" reasons, according to the charge sheet.

Last week police said the men trained in a camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province run by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). The ADF claims links to Islamic State (IS). The rebel group originally started in Uganda but it now operates in the jungles of eastern DRC.

Police have said during a search of a home of one of the suspects that materials used for making improvised explosive devices were found, as well as al-Qaeda training manuals on how to make and detonate bombs. There have been more than a dozen assassinations of prominent figures in the east African country over the last decade and most of them, typically perpetrated by men riding on motorbikes, have never been solved.

 

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