Foiled Uganda suicide bomb attacker jailed for 10 years

Rashid Katumba was arrested in August 2021 in possession of explosives in the northern town of Pader on the eve of the funeral for Major General Paul Lokech. [Photo, courtesy]

Uganda sentenced an Islamic State-linked group member to 10 years over a thwarted terror attack on the funeral of a top army commander three years ago, an official confirmed to AFP Tuesday.

Rashid Katumba was arrested in August 2021 in possession of explosives in the northern town of Pader on the eve of the funeral for Major General Paul Lokech, nicknamed the "Lion of Mogadishu".

President Yoweri Museveni blamed the plot on the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which emerged in Uganda in 1996 but has been active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.

The International Crimes Division of Uganda's high court handed down the sentences for Katumba, as well as two other defendants Luyenjje Najjimu and Arafat Jamil Kiyemba in the capital Kampala on August 23.

"Upon their own plea of guilty, Katumba was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail" for his involvement in the attempted funeral attack, Jacquelyn Okui, spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, told AFP Tuesday.

She said that "Najjimu and Kiyemba were convicted and sentenced to five years each".

The three were Ugandan citizens and all admitted to belonging to a terror organisation, she said.

Lokech, who died in 2021 from blood clots, served two stints as a commander in Somalia with AMISOM, the African Union military operation fighting the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab insurgents.

He led the units that routed Al-Shabaab fighters from the capital Mogadishu in 2011, a feat that earned him his nickname.

The ADF, originally made up of mainly Muslim Ugandan rebels, has been accused of killing thousands of civilians.

It also carries out attacks in Uganda, claiming responsibility for the murder of a honeymooning couple visiting the East African country in 2023.

Since the end of 2021, the Congolese and Ugandan armies have conducted joint operations against the ADF in North Kivu and the neighbouring province of Ituri.