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Uganda confirms arrest of ADF rebel leader

Xinhua, May 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Ugandan police on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of Jamil Mukulu, the leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group currently causing havoc in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

Fred Enanga, Uganda's police spokesperson told Xinhua by telephone that Interpol Tanzania confirmed Mukulu's identity through DNA tests. Mukulu has been on Interpol's most wanted list since 2011.

"We made all the necessary requests and exchanges with our Tanzanian counters on the confirmation of the person under their custody. After all the measures and precautions, we got the confirmation from our counterparts yesterday that the subject issue is Jamil Mukulu," said Enanga.

The police spokesperson said a Ugandan security team on Monday left the East African country for neighboring Tanzania to formalize the process for the extradition of Mukulu in order to prosecute him at the country's International War Crimes Division of its High Court.

"Our team is in Tanzania working on all the necessary formalities, procedures and legalities for his extradition to Uganda. We shall charge him with terrorism, murder and possibly crimes against humanity," Enanga said.

Interpol issued a red notice for Mukulu in connection with the 1996 Mpondwe attack in the western Ugandan district of Kasese and the June 1998 Kichwamba Technical Institute massacre in the western district of Kabarole, in which about 80 students were killed.

He also faces charges of human rights abuses, kidnapping and recruitment of children in both Uganda and DR Congo.

Mukulu, 51, whose rebel group carried out several attacks in the capital Kampala in the 1990s, was arrested in Tanzania last month.

The ADF, a partly Islamist grouping of Ugandan origin formed in the 1990s have continued to commit atrocities and human rights abuses that include killings of civilians, rape, abductions and looting in eastern DR Congo despite the Congolese military hunting them.

In late 2014, the ADF was blamed for a spate of killing sprees in Beni Territory of eastern DRC's North Kivu province that claimed the lives of some 250 men, women and children. Endi