Court Confirms Terrorism Charges Against ex-Guantanamo Bay Inmate Kiyemba

The High Court- International Crimes Division has confirmed charges of rendering support to a terrorist organisation, belonging or professing to belong to a terrorist organisation and soliciting or inviting support for a terrorist organization against Jamal Kiyemba.

It is alleged by the Office of the DPP that between 2021 and January 2022, in Uganda and the DRC, Jamal Kiyemba rendered support to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a terrorist organization.

In addition, it is alleged that during the very period in the same locations, Jamal Kiyemba belonged or professed to belong to the ADF.

Furthermore, it is alleged that Jamal Kiyemba on 29th January 2022 at the Old Taxi Park in Kampala solicited or invited support for the ADF.

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, Kiyemba, 44, also known as Tonny Kiyemba, was arrested last year.

Justice Alice Komuhangi confirmed charges against Kiyemba and ruled that the prosecution has adduced incriminating evidence warranting the accused to stand trial.

Kiyemba is expected to appear before a panel of three justices or a judge appointed by the head of the division to take a plea before the trial commences.

He was remanded to prison as he awaits the fixing of a date for the hearing of the case.

According to media reports, the former pharmacy student at a university in Leicester travelled to Pakistan in 2002, where he was arrested for alleged links to al-Qaeda and was later held at Guantanamo Bay for four years until he was released in 2006 without charge.

He later received £1 million ($1.5 million) in compensation for wrongful imprisonment and abuse of his human rights.

According to Anadolu Agency, he was returned to Uganda and imprisoned after former British Home Secretary Charles Clarke personally intervened to keep him out of Britain on “national security grounds.”

He claimed the Americans forced him, under torture, to confess to terrorist activities and that Britain’s domestic counterintelligence agency the MI5 interrogated him repeatedly, quizzing him about British terror suspects and the jailed clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada.