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Tracing police’s ‘wild goose chase’ of Aine
Former head of Mr Amama Mbabazi’s security detail Christopher Aine. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
Puzzle solved. Missing Christopher Aine, the security aide of former presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi, who became a subject of controversy during the just concluded general election, resurfaced on Thursday, standing alongside the President’s brother, Gen Salim Saleh. While many – including his family – presumed him dead, police kept a relentless search of whom they wanted to charge over the Ntungamo election violence. Saturday Monitor’s Allan Chekwech followed the fruitless search and now reports how and where it all went.
The police hit a wall in the search for Amama Mbabazi’s head of security, Mr Christopher Aine, three months after his disappearance, investigations done by this newspaper have established.
Mr Aine went missing from the public on December 20, 2015, and only reappeared on Thursday alongside President Museveni’s brother Gen Salim Saleh. Just like that.
In the first week of January, a man – whose name has been withheld for various reasons who claimed to have escorted Aine out of Uganda - is reported to have volunteered information to the highest office of police.
The euphoria around the whereabouts of Aine then was fever pitch. To anyone who was interested in finding out where Aine had gone, this was a good clue to cling to.
According to sources privy to the developments, soon after getting the tip-off, the police looked for seven undercover personnel to mount the search for the man two principals in the 2016 presidential race had been trading accusations over.
This newspaper has established that some of the members of the team included soldiers who had served in Amisom and plain clothes intelligence operatives.
First was a team of three to accompany the man who had volunteered the information. Then the next team comprised three men and a lady. “In all our missions, a lady is always involved,” the sources say.
The destination was Nairobi, Kenya. The information given to police, the sources say, was that Aine had fled to Nairobi through Sebei.
The team was briefed that Aine had driven in a Toyota Noah from Kampala to Sipi in Kapchorwa District from where he jumped onto a boda boda that took him to Suam – the Uganda/Kenya border.
The team also gathered information that upon arrival in Suam, the Kenyan authorities reportedly arrested Aine on allegations of impersonation.
“We were told that Aine had used a pseudo name – Maket – (a name in Sabiny, which is a short form for hyena). However, it was not clear how he was released after the police [there] were allegedly bribed,” the source says.
This newspaper has not independently verified the arrest claims with the Kenyan authorities.
So the team of three – largely disguised as Go-Forward supporters – hit the road through Suam in Bukwo District to Kitale on January 15. It is at this point that they got in touch with the Kenyan police at Kitale. But they did not get much information, the sources say.
Search in Kenya
On January 20, the second team of four was dispatched directly to Nairobi. The first search involved going to Turkana in northern Kenya and Narok along the Rift Valley, west of Nairobi, before returning to the Kenyan capital.
“We largely depended on intelligence reports from our undercover colleagues in Kenya. Most of the seven members were not well versed with Nairobi, we would just storm an area (almost blindly). We relied largely on information from Kenyan intelligence team, which affected our mission,” the sources claim.
Police bounce
“When we failed to find Aine on both searches in Narok and Turkana, we went back to Nairobi towards the end of January where we were tipped off that Aine was hiding. We went to Karen [an upscale Nairobi residential area] but we did not find him. We hit a wall and returned to our base [still in Nairobi].”
A third team was on February 5 dispatched to the Kenyan capital. This newspaper has not got information of the search perimeters of this team, but was reliably briefed that they also returned to Kampala with sketchy clues.
On February 10, a week to the general election, the team of three was sent back to Nairobi, but returned to Kampala before the elections. Again, without Aine or leads about his whereabouts. It is not yet clear which areas they searched during this trip.
This newspaper has also obtained information that the search team monitored homes of politicians loyal to Amama Mbabazi in Nairobi but only returned with empty hands.
On March 3, the search team made another routine trip to Nairobi. This time the search went to the outskirts of Nairobi and a few identified hotels.
“All our tip-offs turned out negative. We would camp in hotels for several hours and go to hangouts but we never succeeded.” They would make a return to Kampala on March 10.
Whenever the members returned to Kampala, they would report to Naguru, the police headquarters, to brief the powers that be about their search.
In one of the briefings in Kampala, the operatives and police – having gone on the various fishing expeditions and returned with empty baskets – are said to have discussed opting to use telephone printouts of the calls Aine made on the day he disappeared.
Deny hitting dead end
However, the deputy police spokesperson, Ms Polly Namaye, told Saturday Monitor that the Force did not hit a wall in the search for the man whose arrest warrant still stood.
“How can we stop the search? We are working with Interpol in several countries and we are also tracking phones of people he spoke to before disappearing. When we get him we shall follow the necessary procedures,” she said last week.
But she refused to delve into the details of the search teams, their number and which countries they were working in. She, however, mentioned only Nairobi.
But Gen Saleh now has Aine whom police had placed a Shs20 million bounty on his head.
Easy come, easy go, the saying goes. Like Aine disappeared just like that, he reappeared just like that.
What Aine says
Mr Aine said in an exclusive interview told NTV that he was hiding in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and chose to disappear because he wanted to stay out of danger that lurked over him just after the Ntungamo clashes.
“I chose to step aside because of the situation at that time. I realised that for my life, I had to step aside to avoid more trouble. I have decided to return because I wanted to put an end to this. I thought this was the right time,” he said.
