 The Ugandan government is looking into whether Mr Jamal Kiyemba, 25, an Al Qaeda suspect deported from the US run Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba, can be tried in Uganda. Kiyemba, who desparately claims to be said he is British, was deported nearly a month ago after Britain rejected him citizenship.
The State Minister for Defence, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the government was looking into whether the Uganda law could apply on him. "We are making inquiries to see whether there is sufficient evidence to have him prosecuted, freed or even benefiting from amnesty," Nankabirwa said.
Kiyemba is held by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force in an unknown location. He was freed without warning two weeks ago as international pressure mounted on America to close the detention camp after a highly critical UN report on the treatment of prisoners there was released. The Americans transferred Kiyemba to Uganda after the British Government refused to help him.
| "We don't want him. He's ucky!" |
The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Julius Onen, defended the transfer saying Kiyemba is a Ugandan. "He had to be transferred here because he is a citizen," Onen said.
The Justice ministers were unavailable to comment on the legal process.
Human Rights campaigners in the UK are uncertain of Kiyemba's safety in Uganda and have called for his immediate return.
| Safety didn't seem to be his biggest concern when he was tramping around in Pak-Land. |
Having grown up with his family in the UK, Kiyemba feels more British than Ugandan, and had asked the UK government to help him return to his family.
| "Please don't let them kill me!" |
Despite being visited by MI5 (British secret service) agents in June 2002, who told Jamal that they consider him British and that he could return to the UK, the British government refused to intervene and on February 9, 2006 the Americans transferred Jamal to Uganda.
On the same day Home Secretary Charles Clarke issued an order indefinitely banning Kiyemba from entering the UK.
| "Get out and don't bother coming back!" |
Kiyemba was seized by the Pakistani military whilst driving with friends on March 19, 2002. He was interrogated by the Pakistanis and allegedly spent three weeks in an underground hole where US agents occasionally interrogated him.
| "Hi Jamal, how's going down there?" |
He was then handed over to the Americans and taken to an airfield outside Peshwar, then to Bagram Airforce Base and finally to Guantanamo Bay. Kiyemba claims the Americans forced him to confess to terrorist activities, and that MI5 interrogated him repeatedly, about British terror suspects and the jailed clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada.
| "They made me, guys, honest, I didn't rat youse out willingly!" |
He is the second Ugandan to have been jailed in Guantanamo Bay after Abas Feroz, who was released early last year. |