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The law allows us to damage vehicles and houses, Ugandan police says


Uganda Police has explained that the country’s law allows its officers to break glasses, windows, and doors so as to gain access or enter a house, a car to remove or arrest a person deemed to be a threat.

The country’s police spokesperson Fred Enanga also said there is ‘no need’ to prosecute a senior officer who recently assaulted opposition leader Kiiza Besigye.

PEPPER SPRAY

The said officer, now identified as Field Force Commander Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rashid Agero, was recently caught on camera smashing the windscreen of Besigye’s vehicle.

The same video captured him spraying unknown liquid, believed to be pepper spray, at Besigye.

But Enanga now says Agero and his colleagues behaved within the confines of the law and well-streamlined in standards police operations procedures particularly when handling riotous crowds.

BRUTAL ARREST

Enanga argues that Besigye adamantly parked in the middle of the road, disrupting traffic flow and engagements with the veteran politician hit a snag and thus the road had to be ‘cleared’ so as to allow smooth movement of road users.

“… our officers are given the powers under the Police Act to break and enter. We can break and enter any building structure, vessel, vehicle and that’s what we did… We had to break into his vehicle before we managed to remove and take him to Nagalama Police Station,” Enanga has explained.

Besigye was heading to a seminar at Namboole Stadium but police blocked the venue insisting that the venue was under renovation.

Besigye’s brutal arrest has been condemned by human rights bodies and Speaker of Parliament in Uganda Rebecca Kadaga.