The High Court in Kampala has ordered the government to pay a total of Shs50 million in compensation to renowned author and dissent writer, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija.
The award follows a decision that Mr Kakwenza’s human rights were violated during his arrest and detention in April 2020.
Mr Kakwenza sued the Attorney General, citing a series of human rights abuses, including torture, incommunicado detention, and unlawful search and seizure of his property.
His arrest followed the publication of his breakthrough novel, The Greedy Barbarian.
The deeply satirical novel explores the life of Kayibanda, a refugee with an untamable vile character in an acutely corrupt African state who rises to political prominence and eats up the country.
The book appeared to have angered some country leaders who believed Mr Kakwenza’s fictitious account was a mockery of real life.
He was arrested and held incommunicado until his lawyer Eron Kiiza filed a writ of habeas corpus that ordered the State to produce the novelist dead or alive.
He was later charged in court but he maintained he had been tortured, with his swollen ankles and wounds on his back leaving the State with eggs in the face.
In the ruling, Justice Boniface Wamala found that the actions of security officers who detained Kakwenza were illegal and in violation of his constitutional rights to personal liberty, privacy, and freedom from torture.
The court heard that Mr Kakwenza was held incommunicado for seven days, during which he was beaten, blindfolded, and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of torture.
“His captors also forced him to reveal passwords to his social media accounts, which were accessed during brutal interrogations,” reads in part, a ruling by the High Court.
The court ruled that the detention lasted from April 13 to April 20, 2020, violated Uganda’s constitutional protections against arbitrary arrest and detention.
Justice Wamala stated that the government agents’ treatment of Kakwenza amounted to “torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” and infringed on his right to privacy by conducting searches without a warrant.
“The applicant was subjected to acts of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment during his detention,” Justice Wamala said in the ruling.
In its ruling, the court awarded Kakwenza Shs40 million in general damages and an additional Shs10 million in exemplary damages, citing the high-handed and unconstitutional behavior of the security officers involved.
The court further emphasized the need to hold state agents accountable for such violations.
Mr Kakwenza’s ordeal became a symbol of suppression of free speech in Uganda, especially for individuals critical of the government.
After his second book, Banana Republic: Where Writing is a Crime also led to an arrest and alleged torture, Mr Kakwenza fled to exile in Germany where he lives as a guest of PEN International.
Although the court did not find sufficient evidence to prove that his detention was directly linked to his novel, it acknowledged that the author had been targeted and mistreated by state agents.
The court also ordered the government to cover the costs of the lawsuit.
The court ruling adds to a growing list of cases where the Ugandan courts have found state agents guilty of human rights violations.
In a similar case, the Constitutional Court ruled in Behangana & Anor v Attorney General (2010) that the illegal search of a home without a warrant was a violation of privacy rights, a ruling that echoes in Kakwenza’s case.
Moreover, state-sponsored torture has been a recurrent issue.
In 2021, the Uganda Human Rights Commission reported multiple instances of torture, with the police and military being the most implicated.
