The recent decision to shut down operations at the Nalufenya Police detention facility may have been welcome in some sections of the public but a number of MPs including Buyaga West MP, Barnabas Tinkasimire are calling on Police to do more than merely closing ‘a torture facility’.
Last week, Police finally implemented the decision passed recently by the Police Advisory Committee to close the operations of Nalufenya detention facility in Jinja district and revert it to a regular police station with public access.
The facility has in recent years been used by Special Operations Unit officers to interrogate and detain violent and high profile criminals, though there have been allegations of torture at the facility.
In his reaction to the development, outspoken legislator, Tinkasimire told the media at Parliament on Moday that IGP Okoth Ochola’s move to close Nalufenya detention center without prosecuting the perpetrators of torture is meaningless.
Tinkasimire said that torturing suspects is an offence in the country hence the need for the police officers who were engaged in the act to be brought to book.
“The best way to start closing Nalufenya would be to start by arresting the torturer. If you left the facility open but locked up the torturers, who then would torture our people?” Tinkasimire said.
Commenting about the same issue, the Kasanda North MP, Patrick Nsamba noted that the IGP should not stop at dealing with closing a mere facility but rather fight the practice of torturing suspects by police officers.
He said there are a number of methods that Police can employ be taken to interrogate suspects than torturing them.
“Afande Ochola, you must conduct Police in a manner that respects suspects. What we have been condemning has not been Nalufenya as a facility because the facility had existed before and it was never a torture chamber,” Nsamba said.
“If you close Nalufenya, it would be good to come out and say, we have closed torture as a mechanism of getting evidence out of suspects and that is what Ugandans are demanding for. Use other policing mechanisms to get evidence from suspects,” he emphasized.
The Nakaseke South MP, Ssemakula Lutamaguzi similarly told journalists at Parliament on Monday that the ‘isolated’ closure of Nalufenya does not excite him.
He said there are several other “torture chambers” around the country that need to be shut down.
“The news about the closure of Nalufenya doesn’t excite me. There are many other torture chambers. What has the Police been waiting for all these years?” Lutamaguzi said.
He wondered why it took long for IGP Ochola who served as Deputy to his predecessor, Gen Kale Kayihura to advise for the facility to be closed.
The reports about the closure of Nalufenya first emerged shortly after the sacking of the former IGP, Gen Kale Kayihura who was replaced by Ochola.
Last month, a Police Advisory Committee meeting reportedly reached a decision to shut down the facility which during Kayihura’s tenure was widely labeled a torture chamber. Several of the suspects who had been detained at Nalufenya said that they had been subjected to acts of torture.
