The former Kamwenge town Godfrey Byamukama

The police had accused the mayor of participating in the said murder.

In the days that followed the widely covered murder, Byamukama was arrested by the Police’s Flying Squad and shipped off to the infamous Nalufenya police station in Jinja. Here, the mayor, just like all the poor chaps that ended up there at the time, was tortured to near death if one is to go by the pictures that were shared on social media platforms at the time.

After public outcry, four police officers including D/ASP Fred Tumuhairwe, D/ASP Patrick Muramira, Habib Roma and Ben Odeke were brought before the Buganda Road Chief Magistrate’s court and charged with torture and soon after released on bail.

Settled out of court

The matter was settled out of court according to Police Director in charge of Human Rights and Legal Services, AIGP Erasmus Twaruhukwa. He made the announcement while speaking at a workshop for Regional Police Commanders at Police headquarters, Naguru, on Thursday.

“We decided to settle the matter out of court. We settled to pay shs1.4 billion. In that case, everything [evidence] was on social media and if we had allowed the case to go on, we knew we were not likely to win. We would be made to pay shs8 billion that they had asked for,” Twaruhukwa said.

The Police director castigated officers to stick to the dictates of Police Act and the Constitution of Uganda.

“We need to have a situation where there is no torture and no detention beyond 48 hours.”