EA secretive trial deal for terrorism suspects

On August 4, last year, I failed in my first attempt to gain entry into the Luzira Upper Prison, Uganda's maximum security prison, to visit seven Kenyan terrorism suspects who court records show are victims of extraordinary renditions to Uganda.

"You cannot just come here and see the Al Shabaab," a prisons officer at the gate growled at me, probably unaware of the ruckus being made about the controversial arrest of the suspects.

I later learnt that even the Uganda Commissioner of Prisons could not grant the permission to see the Kenyan suspects — Idris Magondu, Mohammed Ahmed Abdow, Hussein Hassan Agade, Mohammed Hamid Suleiman, Yahya Suleiman Mbuthia, Habib Suleiman Njoroge and Omar Awadh Omar.

I later turned to Plan B. I was to enter the jail masquerading as a lawyer for the suspects. I paid a few thousand Ugandan shillings at a stall in Kampala and in about 10 minutes, the supporting documents were ready. I left for Luzira and managed to get in.

The suspect I met, Mbuthia, narrated accounts of torture and abuse with tears rolling down his cheeks.

In the first year of custody, the suspects, he told me, were locked up in a tiny stone-walled cell measuring about 1.5 metres by 2 metres. It had no windows except for a small ventilation shaft and a fluorescent light tube which was never turned off.

On some of the days, they narrated, they were kept blindfolded and deprived of food and sleep for up to 48 hours. At times they were stripped naked, punched and whipped with electric cables. Others were periodically subjected to electric shocks or had their nails plucked out.

The Kenyans ended up inside Uganda cells from what court records indicate are extraordinary renditions.

Extraordinary renditions gained public notoriety under then US President Bill Clinton's administration and later President George Bush. It is a process in which suspected terrorists were moved from one country to countries known to use torture, usually for purposes of extracting information from them.

Legal experts in Kenya say it violates the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty that Kenya ratified on February 21, 1997. This is why some of the Kenyan suspects have challenged their captivity.

Their case in Kampala has generated a treasure trove of documents on the secretive rendition programme, including thousands of pages of court filings that detail how it is actually run in East Africa.

In Kampala, I discovered that 67 Kenyans were extradited to Uganda following a suicide bomb attack at a Kampala that left 74 dead. Except for the seven in Luzira, the fate of the others is still unknown.

In one of the court records, the Kenyan High Commissioner to Kampala, in a letter signed by J.K Maikara for the High Commissioner, protested he was not made aware of the arrests as required in diplomatic circles.

Most of the confidential documents offer a rare window into the workings of the secretive system that the Kenya Anti-terrorist Police Unit (ATPU) allegedly used to hold and try terrorism suspects.

In sworn affidavits, ATPU officials claimed they detained Idris Magondu, Mohammed Ahmed Abdow and Hussein Hassan Agade and sent them on rendition to Uganda on July 27, 2010, "to assist the Uganda authorities with their investigations".

On August 14, 2010, ATPU did the same to Mohammed Hamid Suleiman and Yahya Suleiman Mbuthia on August 26, 2010. Kenyans Habib Suleiman Njoroge and Omar Awadh Omar have also claimed that ATPU spirited them to Uganda in August and September 2010 respectively.

According to the court records, Kenya and Uganda security agencies allegedly entered into a convenient working relationship using Uganda as a suitable base to try suspects.

Records show that the investigations were handled by the Joint Anti-terrorism Unit popularly known as JAT, the Violent Crime Crack Unit that was disbanded and was to be replaced with the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and other intelligence and security agencies.

Days after the attack, Ugandan officers recovered a suicide vest that had failed to detonate. The suicide vest was connected to a phone that officers said connected several men to the terror attack.

That mobile phone, the most important piece of evidence from the investigations, allegedly belonged to Issa Ahmed Luyima, said by the Ugandan security agencies to be one of the masterminds of the attacks.

Investigators using Material and Personnel Exploitation skills analysed the SIM cards obtained from the suspects and from the information extracted, the Ugandan security agents developed an organogram connecting men said to be responsible for the attacks. The organogram had eight names – all Kenyans— who were eventually spirited away in extraordinary renditions.

While in the Luzira cells, Omar established that he was the last in a group of 10 Kenyans renditioned.

In the documents, 37-year-old businessman Omar Awidhi, described as a financier, recounted his ordeal.

"I was apprehended by two men who I later learnt to be officers from the ATPU," he narrated. "I was handcuffed... with my hands to the back."

"I was roughly pushed into a Subaru station wagon vehicle. As the car sped off, the ATPU officers who had apprehended me forced a thin sack-like hood over my head, through which I could see very little."

"The car drove by the gates of State House in Nairobi and stopped by a security control point."

Omar's says that when the vehicle stopped, a top ATPU officer came out and lifted his hood. "He identified me by saying 'positive'."

After being positively identified, the journey to Uganda began. He claims that during the journey, ATPU officers pointed guns at him saying they were going to "finish me off".

The car stopped at the Kenya-Uganda border where within minutes, Omar Awadh was placed in the custody of Ugandan security officers.

Awadh would be among the last of 10 people allegedly on rendition from Kenya over the Kampala attacks.