IGP Ochola Designates Nalufenya to Police Station

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) martin Okoth Ochola has re-designated the Nalufenya detention facility from a Special Force Operation Base to a police station.

In a message released on Friday, April 27, to all police units and directors, Ochola stated that Nalufenya is to resume operations and functions of a police station with immediate effect.

The re-designation comes barely a week after Ochola appeared in parliament and promised that he would shut down Nalufenya as a detention facility.

“I have re-designated the Special Force Operation base at Nalufenya to the operations and functions of a police station as it was before. The Director Logistics and Engineering and the Director Human Resource Administration should ensure it functions as a police station, “reads part of the message.

In March 2018, a special Committee was set up by IGP Ochola to investigate the operations of Nalufenya has cleared the facility of any allegations of torture.

The committee chaired by the Director Human Rights and Legal services Erasmus Twaruhukwa is supposed to present its recommendations to the policy and Advisory Committee (PAC) a week later.

In its report, the special committee praised the Jinja-based detention facility for treating suspects well and highlighted that there is no evidence that any suspect has ever been tortured from Nalufenya.

But the police Public Accounts Committee resolved that the facility should be re-designed.  The resolution was based on the bad image the facility has created for the force following claims of torture by suspects detained there.

Nalufenya has since 2014 attracted bad publicity for the Police Force with the first group is suspects detained there on allegations that they had been working with the Allied Democratic Front (ADF) to committed terrorism in Uganda accused police to have tortured them from there.

The allegations were shortly after followed by others from suspects arrested for the murder of former Police Spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi and most prominently the Mayor of Kamwenge Geoffrey Byamukama.

Nalufenya has existed as a police station since 1954, initially as police post, then as a police station under Kiira policing region. Before it was turned into a special operation Center, the centre and detention facility for high profile suspects was at the Special Investigations Division headquarters in Kireka.

The Kireka facility was introduced in 2006 after it became impossible to Detain suspected high profile criminals with other suspects at Central Police Station Kampala.