The Police has ordered all its units across Uganda to take precautionary measures to prevent suspects in police custody from escaping.
The Police Director of Operations, AIGP Assuman Mugenyi has warned Police personnel against actions that might result into the escape of suspects under their custody, saying that officers under whose watch any suspect escapes will be held responsible.
The directive which is contained in an internal memo circulated among all Regional and District Police commanders follows recent incidents in Greater Masaka and Elgon regions where suspects facing capital offences escaped from police facilities.
“You must be reminded that this is unacceptable and measures must be taken to forestall any reoccurrence,” the memo issued by AIGP Mugenyi reads in part.
He listed measures that the respective units must undertake, including avoidance of keeping suspects in weak detention facilities. Stations have also been asked to beef up their security, especially the cells and armories.
In order to eliminate situations where the suspects exploit loopholes in the supervision, AIGP Mugenyi has also ordered police stations “to avoid predictable, lax, ambiguous, unfocused, un alert, drunkard and seemingly bored deployments to secure stations”.
Such deployments, he says, make the police officers soft targets of suspects intending to escape.
Police officers have also been cautioned to uphold professionalism and desist from being compromised by taking bribes.
They will also be required to use handcuffs on all suspects especially those of caoits offences when outside of secure custody or in transit.