KAMPALA: Buganda Road Court has granted bail to Kawempe North Member of Parliament, Muhammad Ssegirinya on separated charges of inciting violence.
Ssegirinya, who is already facing murder charges in connection with the Greater Masaka killings, was on Thursday, December 2, in court on other charges of posting on his Facebook fans page a massage allegedly calculated to incite the public against a section or group of Ugandan population while relating it to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Ssegirinya, who appeared in court via zoom from Murchison Bay prison in Luzira, complained of stomach complications, saying he needed to conduct a scan to ascertain its cause, which he can’t get in the prisons.
He also accused Prison Officials of denying him a chance to attend Friday prayers like other inmates and subjecting him to medical interns at Mulago Hospital who handled him in a degrading manner. Ssegirinya told the court that doctors told him that his rotten foot is developing cancer and that he developed kidney complications
Grade One magistrate Doreen Olga Karungi granted the MP bail and ordered him to pay Shs.1 million cash while his two sureties were each bonded Shs.10 million not cash. The Wandegeya Ward councilor in Kampala, Thomas Bagonza, and his Wampewo Ward counterpart in Ruteete Parish in Wakiso district, Apollo Ariho stood surety for Ssegirinya.
The magistrate then set December 22, 2021, as the date when she will start hearing the case. But it remains to be seen if the state will honor the court orders and release the MP on bail.
Ssegirinya, his Makindye West counterpart, Allan Ssewanyana, and several others are currently on remand on murder, attempted murder, and aiding and abetting terrorism charges over the recent spate of killings in greater Masaka. They were last month committed to High Court for trial.
They had been granted bail in connection to the case only to be re-arrested, more charges slapped on them, and remanded.