Besigye’s curse might be at work as his well known tormentor Afande Gilbert Arinaitwe Bwana, the police detective who infamously rose to fame in 2011 for breaking the car windows of Dr Kizza Besigye’s vehicle with a pistol and pepper-spraying his eyes at Mulago roundabout, has been committed to the High Court on charges of aggravated trafficking.
Arinaitwe was on Tuesday committed by Buganda Road chief magistrate Ronald Kayizzi who directed him to continue reporting to the registrar of the International Crimes Division (ICD) every last Thursday of the month until the next convenient session of the High court.
It is alleged that Arinaitwe recruited, transported, and harboured his 23-year-old housemaid for purposes of sexual exploitation at his home in Nalumunye-Bandwe, Kyengera town council.
“Arinaitwe Bwana Gilbert and others still at large on June, 23, 2023 at Nalumunye-Bandwe, Kyengera Town Council in the Wakiso District recruited or maintained or confined or transported or transferred or haboured or received or facilitated aforementioned acts on Namukasa Joan by means of threat or use of force other forms of coercion or deception or abuse of power or position of vulnerability for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labour or involuntarily servitude or debt bondage,” court documents reveal.
Section 3(1) (a) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act 2009 states that a person who recruits, transports, transfers, harbours or receives a person, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation commits an offence named trafficking in persons (human trafficking).
Section (4)(h) of the same law says that the offence becomes aggravated trafficking if it is committed by military personnel or a law enforcement officer.
The law says on conviction, a person charged with aggravated trafficking is liable to imprisonment for life.