By Our Reporters
Through his lawyers of KAA, Gen Kale Kayihura has hired and retained private investigators to counter-check everything that ISO and CMI investigators will be coming up with trying to implicate him in criminal enterprise. “We have been instructed by our client [Kayihura] to closely study every story that the state owned media [Bukedde and New Vision] reports because we are certain their reports are deliberate leaks from ISO. They have decided to conduct a public trial of our client and this has left us with no option but to conclude that the best way to know what they are cooking up is to closely follow the stories in those two newspapers. When they reported that he killed Kaweesi and followed it up with corroborative reporting implicating former Kayihura aides by claiming phone log records placed them within vicinity of the murder scene, we decided to hire our own private investigators who have compiled phone call logs for all those officers and the report is ready,” says Jet Tumwebaze who is one of the 6 lawyers KAA has designated to constitute Kayihura’s legal team. He was speaking to this news website in a long interview earlier today. As reported by Chimpreports on Wednesday, Tumwebaze said it’s going to be very hard for prosecution to build any case against Kayihura or any of his aides in the Kaweesi murder. “When the State media reported that the phone records place them at murder scene, our client instructed us to privately investigate this and the findings are shocking. It’s clear none of those guys was anywhere near the crime scene as previously reported by ISO. The report is very comprehensive though confidential and people are going to be ashamed. I can tell you they have nothing. Not even 5% in what they are saying against our client. These are all fabrications and they [ISO] have been calling me saying don’t dare address the press calling our investigations sham. I have refused to be intimidated because as a lawyer I know these are occupational hazards,” Tumwebaze told this news website in an interview earlier today at his KAA offices. There was perhaps no better person to interact with on this matter because Tumwebaze is one guy who visits Makindye and directly interacts with Kayihura almost on daily basis. “This is how it works; each time he gets something they are cooking up he calls for us. We sit down with him in the tree sheds outside his room and plan counter moves and we thank the leadership of the military for allowing us unlimited access to our client. You know he is a 4 star General and he has his sources. He gets to know and calls us in to plan counter moves. You just know everything they come up with, we are under instructions to use our private investigators to cross check and expose the shamness therein. We are confident they have nothing against him. Not even one. This is why we are speaking on record unlike them who speak to the state media anonymously. That means there is nothing. If you have anything credible why do you parade witnesses on TV? The best place to go to is court so that whatever evidence you have is subjected to the well-established standards of scrutiny.” Asked whether Kayihura feels betrayed to see the President doing nothing to prevent the state media from being used to demonize his client, Tumwebaze said: “Not at all. My client knows who is behind all this. We have a full report on who at ISO is doing what to cook up which evidence but it’s only him [Kayihura] who has restrained us from publicly naming and shaming those people. He believes its Kaka doing all this and nobody else.” Asked why Kaka would do all this and whether he has any vendetta against Kayihura, Tumwebaze said: “I really don’t know because even my client says he is totally surprised where all this vendetta is coming from because they have no history of conflicting on anything as colleagues in the military.” Asked where all this is going to end, Tumwebaze (who is a neighbor and fellow livestock farmer of the President in Kisozi) says “the President will certainly have the last word but otherwise legally for us we are more than prepared to successfully defend our client.” He said there are legally many options they would explore as lawyers to get freedom for their man but its General Kayihura restraining them. “He doesn’t want confrontation and says we can give them [ISO] all the time they require and he isn’t worried because he repeatedly says they will find nothing against him,” Tumwebaze said.
KALE VIEWS ON 48HR
RULE NOT CHANGE;
Tumwebaze opened up to us on a number of things including why it remains Gen Kayihura’s view that the 48 hour rule is operationally very constraining and should be scrapped. “He is speaking from experience and says it remains his view this should be extended to between 72 and 90 hours because 48 hours isn’t enough. This is why he isn’t angry that his colleagues are taking forever to conclude investigations. He has been in this thing at an operational level and knows how complicated investigations and evidence-gathering can be,” Tumwebaze said adding “that’s is why he didn’t feel angry when Brig Kaka recently said investigations could take even a whole year.” He added that it remains Kayihura’s view that the state knows and has in its custody the rightful suspects that murdered Kaweesi. He said the only option available to the state is to either release those people or clearly link them to Kayihura which he said they are failing so far. “You can’t say these are fake suspects because they were arrested by CMI and not the police that was under his control. I think these guys are now struggling to establish a connection and link those suspects to Gen Kayihura which isn’t going to be easy.” Tumwebaze said these suspects are in the CMI custody “and gratefully even our private investigations report accurately places them to the crime scene and by the way some of them have willingly confessed to the crime.” Watch out for the role the EU delegations played in delaying Kayihura’s arrest. And did you know that the army chopper that landed to pick Kayihura from his Kashagama farm in Lyantonde took him away in the presence of officials from European Development Bank (EDB)? What had they come to do at Kayihura’s country home? Tumwebaze, whose KAA was contacted by Gen Kayihura two days before he was finally arrested/asking them to prepare to be his defense attorneys, opens up on all this and he is gratefully on record. Watch this space for this EU delegation role in delaying Kayihura’s eventual arrest.
