General's girlfriend charged
2009-11-17 13:39
Kampala - The girlfriend of a former Ugandan army chief, accused by the UN of plundering resources during Uganda's invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been charged with his murder in Kampala, a court official told AFP Tuesday.
"Lydia Draru has been charged with murder, but investigations are still continuing ... ," Elias Kisawuzi said.
On November 10, Draru, 28, reportedly phoned the Uganda police and said she had killed her lover, Major General James Kazini, during a domestic dispute.
She said that Kazini was drunk, had thrown a bottle at her and in an act of self-defence she struck him on the head with an iron bar three times.
Kazini, 52, joined President Yoweri Museveni's rebel movement in the early 1980s and became chief bodyguard for Museveni's brother, Salim Saleh.
After Museveni took power in 1986, Kazini was deployed to crush various rebel groups.
He won huge favour in 1999, when he successfully chased the Allied Democratic Forces, a group that claims it is fighting for Muslim rights, through the Rwenzori mountains.
After his success against the ADF, Kazini was sent to eastern DR Congo to command the Ugandan troops who had entered the country earlier to support the invasion of Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila.
Civilian casualties
While stationed in Kisangani, Ugandan forces on three occasions clashed with their supposed Rwandan allies, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties.
Kazini is believed to have ordered the attack unilaterally, defying the orders of his senior officers.
In the build up to the Kisangani clashes he once ordered all his tanks to fire into the River Congo in the dead of night.
In 2000, Kazini, who often kept a cigarette butt clamped between his lips while he talked, was named army commander.
In 2001, a UN report accused him, and his former boss Salim Saleh, of stealing Congolese resources. Kazini denied the allegations.
He was replaced as army commander in 2003 amid allegations of army payroll irregularities and was accused of creating an illegal battalion in northwest Uganda that reported exclusively to him.
In March of this year he was convicted of defrauding the army of $33 000 but was planning to appeal the verdict.
Last week, Museveni called for further investigations into Kazini's death.
- SAPA