Kawempe North Member of Parliament Muhammad Ssegirinya has said that the State tortured him because he refused to accept their advances of pinning the National Unity Platform (NUP) president Robert Kyagulanyi of bankrolling the Masaka panga wielding assailants.
Ssegirinya who is currently being remanded at Luzira Prison made the revelation to Mityana Municipality legislator Francis Zaake who had gone to visit him at Murchison Bay Hospital, Luzira Prison on Thursday.
“Ssegirinya is not in good state healthwise. He needs better medical attention,” Zaake told the media.
“He also told me that he was severely tortured by the state because he refused to accuse our president Bobi Wine of financing the murderers who recently killed the people of Masaka. When he told me I had to come out to relay his information to the public,” the Commissioner of Parliament representing the opposition further noted.
On 15 October, 2021 while in Masaka Magistrates Court, Ssegirinya asked the Judge to be given an opportunity to display how he was tortured by people he described as goons when he was rearrested after being given bail by Masaka High Court.
Permission was granted to the legislator whowas appearing via a video conferencing link.
Ssegirinya then in his blue blazer lifted his left leg and displayed to court a foot with multiple wounds that appeared to be drying steadily.
The Magistrate directed the prisons to give him medical treatment and they informed court that they are already managing him.
But immediately after seeing the wounds, Ssegirinya’s mother Sanyu Christine Nakajumba broke down in tears in court and was lifted and taken outside by some of the people who had come to follow the proceedings.
Nakajumba wept as she said that her son should be forgiven by the State and appealed to President Yoweri Museveni to set Ssegirinya free.
According to Nakajumba, once Ssegirinya is set free, as a mother she is going to counsel him to desist from participating in anything that may result into a crime.
Ssegirinya has been in prison since September 7th 2021 when he was arrested and remanded to Kigo prison together with his Makindye West counterpart Allan Ssewanyana.
This was after being charged with terrorism, aiding and abetting terrorism, murder and attempted murder stemming from their alleged involvement in the Greater Masaka region machete killings, which claimed more than 20 lives between July and September 2021.
Based on the presumption that they are innocent, Masaka High Court Lady Justice Victoria Nakintu Katamba on September 20th 2021 granted them bail. However, the duo was re-arrested in separate incidents from the precincts of Kigo prisons.
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