A special Committee set up by the Inspector General of Police (IGP)  Martin Okoth-Ochola to investigate the operations of Nalufenya has cleared the facility of any allegations of torture.

The committee chaired by the police Director Human Rights and Legal Services, Erasmus Twaruhukwa, is supposed to present it’s recommendations to the policy and Advisory Committee (PAC) on Wednesday.

According to a reliable source who is privy to the working of the committee, in its report the special committee praised  the Jinja based detention facility for treating suspects well.
They also highlight that there is no evidence that any suspect has ever been tortured from Nalufenya.

“They say that even though some suspects have been receiving treatment from Nalufenya, they are brought with injuries to the facility, ” the source told Uganda Radio Network anonymously as he is not allowed to speak for the Police  Force.

When contacted, the police spokesperson Emilian Kayima, who is also a member of the seven-man committee, refused to divulge the details of the report.

“I will not say anything about it until when an official communication has been made, ” Kayima said.

The Police Policy and Advisory Committee (PAC) on which the IGP,   Deputy IGP, all Directors and undersecretary sit, will discuss the report and make a conclusive decision on the future of Nalufenya.

The special committee was constituted last week on Wednesday after PAC resolved to send a team out and assess the operations of the facility.

On Thursday,  the team visited the facility and later sat to make a report.

Nalufenya has since 2014 attracted bad publicity for the police Force with the first group of suspects detained there on allegations that they had been working with the Allied Democratic Front (ADF) to commit terrorism in Uganda accusing police of torture. The allegations were shortly after followed by others from suspects arrested in connection to the murder in March 2017 of Assistant Inspector General of Police Andrew Felix Kaweesi. Most prominent among the cases was that of the Kamwenge Mayor Geoffrey Byamukama whose pictures went viral having been hospitalised at Nakasero Hospital with deep wounds on his knees and ankles.

Nalufenya which is gazetted as a police station has existed since 1954, initially as police post, then as a police station under KIIRA policing region before it was made a special operations Unit centre.

Before it was turned into a special operation Centre, high profile suspects were being detained at the special Investigations Division headquarters in Kireka. The Kireka facility was introduced in 2006 after it became impossible to detain high-profile suspects at Central Police Station Kampala.

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