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5 sentenced to life imprisonment over 2010 bombings in Uganda

Uganda

The Uganda High Court has sentenced five people to life imprisonment after they were convicted on terrorism charges for the 2010 bombings that killed 76 people.

Five people given life sentence for 2010 bomb attacks in #Uganda

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The court had on Tuesday found seven men guilty of carrying out the attacks on a restaurant and a rugby club in the Ugandan capital. The two others were sentenced to 50 years in jail.

“With regards to each of the counts in the offences of terrorism, murder and attempted murder, Hussein Hassan Agade – raise your hands up … Idris Magondu, Issa Ahmed Luyima, Habib Suleiman Njoroge and Mohammed Ali Mohammed are each sentenced to life imprisonment. They will each spend the remainder of their lives in prison,” read Justice Alphonse Owiny Dollo of the Uganda High Court.

Justice Owiny further condemned the act of terrorism but at the same time he believed the sentencing will not gratify the victims.

“The grave crimes of terrorism and murder ruthlessly committed in the Kyadondo grounds and Ethiopian Village restaurant must correspondingly attract severe punishment. I however do not believe that the death sentence will really assuage the victims and give closure to the indelible pain that society has suffered on account of the terrorist and murderous acts.”

The accused had been tried on a range of charges including terrorism, murder and membership of a terrorist organisation.

Al-Shabaab said it carried out the attack because Uganda provides the largest number of troops to an African Union force fighting them in Somalia.

Thousands of Ugandan troops form the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is the UN-backed force established to fight the Al-Shabaab Islamists and protect the internationally recognized government.

Al-Shabaab have continued to pursue several attacks in the neighbouring countries in the region, carrying out the 2013 assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi that killed at least 67 people, and the attack on Kenya’s Garissa University in April 2015 that left at least 148 people dead.

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