Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has appointed a former military intelligence chief, who is blacklisted by the United States over alleged rights violations, to the top command of the country’s feared police force.
Major General Abel Kandiho was recalled late Tuesday from his posting as security envoy in South Sudan barely two weeks after being dropped as spymaster.
Kandiho has “been appointed to the position of the Joint Staff of the Uganda Police Force,” Uganda’s military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Kakurungu said in a statement.
Until last month, Kandiho was the commander of Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence and has faced accusations of abuses including beatings, sexual assault and electrocution.
The US Treasury slapped Kandiho with sanctions last December over alleged human rights violations committed under his watch.
People arrested by his bureau were “subjected to horrific beatings and other egregious acts by officials, including sexual abuse and electrocutions, often resulting in significant long-term injury and even death,” it said in a statement.
The US said Kandiho was sometimes personally involved in leading interrogations of detained individuals, including of those singled out for criticising the government.
Uganda has long suffered a series of crackdowns aimed at stamping out dissent, with journalists attacked, lawyers jailed, election monitors prosecuted and opposition leaders violently muzzled.