Foiled Suicide Bomber in Uganda Sent to Ten Years in Prison

An official told AFP on Tuesday that Uganda has convicted a member of an Islamic State-affiliated group to ten years in prison for foiling a terror assault during the funeral of a senior army commander three years prior.

On the occasion of Major General Paul Lokech’s burial, also known as the “Lion of Mogadishu,” Rashid Katumba was detained in August 2021 in the northern town of Pader for having explosives in his possession.

The plot was attributed by President Yoweri Museveni to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), who have been engaged in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for decades and have ties to the Islamic State. The ADF was founded in Uganda in 1996.

On August 23, in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, the International Crimes Division of the Ugandan High Court imposed penalties on Katumba and the other two defendants, Luyenjje Najjimu and Arafat Jamil Kiyemba.

For his part in the attempted funeral attack, Katumba was found guilty and given a 10-year jail sentence, according to a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Jacquelyn Okui, told AFP on Tuesday.

“Najjimu and Kiyemba were found guilty and sentenced to five years each,” the speaker stated.

She said that the three were citizens of Uganda and that they had all acknowledged being a part of a terror group.

Lokech fought two tours as a commander in Somalia with AMISOM, the African Union military operation battling the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab terrorists. Lokech passed away in 2021 from blood clots.

His nickname originated from the fact that in 2011 he led the forces who drove Al-Shabaab fighters out of the capital city of Mogadishu.

Thousands of civilians are alleged to have been killed by the ADF, which was initially composed primarily of Muslim rebels from Uganda.

Additionally, it conducts attacks in Uganda and takes credit for the 2023 murder of a honeymooning couple that traveled to East Africa.

The army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda have been cooperating to fight the ADF in North Kivu and the neighboring province of Ituri since the end of 2021.