Uganda president orders trial for AMISOM officers

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has suspended and ordered the military prosecution of four officers following a September 1 al-Shabaab attack on a UPDF base in Somalia in which 19 soldiers were killed. His comments raise a serious question of unlawful command influence and will make it a challenge to conduct a fair trial. According to this report:

"It was the mistake of our own soldiers. Our commanders were asleep, not alert," Museveni told a small group of reporters in Tokyo, according to the Associated Press. 

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In the radio message, Museveni wondered why the UPDF was not following its SOPs [standard operational procedures], which should have kept the Amisom military base safe from attack. He wondered how a vehicle full of explosives could have driven past UPDF defences that are hundreds of metres away and reached the military base. 

The decision to suspend the soldiers came after Gen. Katumba Wamala, who travelled to Janale shortly after the attack, had said he was "convinced the boys put up a good fight." Gen. Katumba said he had gone to establish whether there were any flaws in the response to the attack.