By Agency
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has commended the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) for taking the lead in remembering the late State Prosecutor, Joan Kagezi.
“When you organise these annual lectures in memory of Joan, you are creating a culture of gratitude to the people who serve and sacrifice. It is not good for the country to have a culture of forgetting, somebody has died, you forget about him or her ,so it’s very good that you organise these annual lectures,” he said.
The President made the remarks on Thursday during the 7th Joan Kagezi Memorial Lecture at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds.
The lecture serves as a platform to honour the life and work of the late Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Kagezi who was shot dead in her vehicle in the presence of her children on the evening of March 30, 2015 in Kiwatule, a Kampala City suburb.
According to President Museveni, before her death, the late Kagezi apparently first got threats from some terrorists who sent her messages that if she did not stop prosecuting them seriously, they would harm her.
“That is what I was told and for her she said I cannot compromise…..That is what corrupt people do, they want to take over the investigative part of the state and the adjudicating part of the state. You compromise the CID, the DPP and the judiciary, then you are immune, you have impunity, you end up like some countries in South America where a person can be killed and nothing can be done. Why? Because the police were infiltrated by the criminals; the judiciary and the prosecution are infiltrated. Therefore, what the terrorists were trying to do here was exactly that,” the President asserted.
He further called for the need for the DPP to audit her group which was handling the 2010 bombing case because they might have been compromised.
President Museveni also assured Ugandans that the government has the suspects accused of killing the late prosecutor in custody.
On the other hand, the Director of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID), AIGP Tom Magambo informed the President that they have good leads of the people who paid the suspects to murder Ms. Kagezi.
President Museveni also cautioned security agencies against beating suspects because they may confess in order to avoid the action being taken against them.