A member of the opposition National Unity Platform(NUP) party has been arrested, arraigned before courts of law and remanded over fake tweets about Gen Elly Tumwine’s death.
Bashir Kasagga, also known as Motiv Kasagga on social media was last week arrested by unknown men from his home cry outs by his close pals.
NUP president, Robert Kyagulanyi also known as Bobi Wine would later accuse security of continued abduction of party supporters, including Kasagga.
“I have been informed of the abduction of another comrade, Motiv Kasagga on Tuesday this week. Information available shows he was found at home and taken away by armed men moving in a private vehicle to an unknown destination. We condemn the continuing abductions of our people,” Bobi Wine tweeted.
According to police spokesperson, Fred Enanga, Kasagga,a fitness trainer was arrested by a joint team from the police and Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence(CMI) to answer charges related to computer misuse.
“During the months of August and September, while in Kampala with requisite knowledge and intent used his social engineering techniques to create, obtain and modify tweets and screenshots of twitter handles for the defence spokesperson, Uganda Police Force, Speaker of Parliament Anita Among and for Balaam Barugahare,” Enanga said.
The police publicist explained that in the fake tweet by the defence spokesperson, Kasagga allegedly tweeted that; “UPDF appeals to the General Public to be calm as we serve food at the send-off of our gallant statesman General Elly Tumwine. We however warn NUP supporters not to dare attend our burial in Kazo. You mocked and hurt the family of our deceased comrade so don’t risk to attend.”
He also faked the Twitter handle for Police and created a tweet that read;We want to sound a warning to the general public that we shall come for you and apply iron fist on you if you can’t learn some morals, our safe houses shall teach you.”
He is also accused of having modified the police twitter handled to post a message saying; “In light of instilling morals in this rotten generation that has made it a hobby to jubilate when government official die, we have arrested Tracy Manule, a NUP supporter, to serve as an example to the rest. The suspect posted the video celebrating the death of Gen Elly Tumwine.”
Enanga said that the suspect faked screenshots for Speaker Anita Among’s twitter handle to say,” It is with great happiness that I have received news of the death of Gen Elly Tumwine. I even told the Pope that this deceased man tortured and killed Ugandans. When I was still in the Forum for Democratic Change, General Tumwine abducted Besigye supporters. It is good that he has died.”
“After modifying the codes he used the sites to display a string of pictures and words that were offensive to the many members of the public. He continued to taunt them on social media and brag but was finally arrested by CMI and CID and his electronic gadgets of material value recovered,”Enanga said on Monday.
The police spokesperson described Kasagga as the leader of a team that doctors social media screenshots of prominent government officials and spreads them on various platforms.
“The blogger has been the leader of a network of social media users and his communication matrix is with thousands of group members. It shows that he has been interacting with a number of selected individuals and political groups that have been sponsoring and glorifying his actions, behaviour and attack towards government officials and institutions. We have since retrieved some of the deceptive posts, chats, pictorials and accounts which he has been sharing with his over 65000 followers on twitter,”Enanga said.
The police spokesperson said that Kasagga was charged with unauthorised modification of computer material under the Computer Misuse Act.
“We have now strengthened the CID Cyber unit and have come out with ways of raising public awareness about cyber-crime and mitigating public risks by pursuing perpetuators of cyber-crime like Bashir Kasagga.
Kasagga has since been remanded to Luzira by the Buganda Road magistrates court.
Second person
Kasagga is the second person to have been arrested and remanded over the death of former Security Minister, Gen Elly Tumwine, after 27-year-old Teddy Nalubowa , a tik toker was previously remanded over the same.
Nalubowa also known as Tracy Manule Bobiholic on social media allegedly celebrated Gen Tumwine’s death by posting ,”Tumwine finally you have died but you died long time and your boss president Museveni will also die. You will die one-by-one and we shall celebrate”.
Death
The death of the former Security Minister and also NRA bush war hero, Gen Elly Tumwine was received with mixed reactions by members of the public.
A number of commentators accused Gen Tumwine of having a sense of entitlement for having participated in the 1986 NRA bush war that brought the current government into power.
Many accused him of speaking recklessly towards the respect for human rights and this mainly stemmed on his comments following the November 2020 riots that saw 50 people killed.
Speaking during the church service, President Museveni described as naysayers members of the public who were insulting Gen Tumwine.
“Don’t worry about those Ugandans. When we were fighting Amin, many were calling us vagabonds(when we went to the bush) because we had left jobs. A job of working under Amin and you call it jobs? For us we were despising them. For us we decided to fight .By the time we came, we were no longer vagabonds but Moses. We had become David who killed Goliath. Don’t think about those fellows talking nothing. They are wasting their time and talking nothing,” Museveni said.
Speaking to mourners, one of the daughters, Cynthia Tumwine asked for forgiveness for her dad in case he wronged anyone.
“While in hospital in Nairobi and while we were praying, one of the things we were convicted about was to seek forgiveness on his behalf. To ask God to forgive him for everything he did either knowingly or unknowingly. We seek forgiveness so that he is on a clean slate,” Cynthia Tumwine said.
“I also wanted not to only do it with God but also do it here that in case dad wronged you in any way, please forgive him. If you also wronged him, he forgave you. He talked about forgiveness every time.”
