Daniel Edyegu
14 April 2008
Kampala — JULIUS Nyago, a 20-year-old student of Dodoth College in Kotido district, has been sentenced to nine years in prison for illegal possession of guns.
The 3rd Division Court Martial chaired by Col. John Baptist Mulindwa convicted Nyago on Friday.
The court heard that he was arrested from school on January 17 with two sub-machine guns and 120 bullets that were concealed in a suitcase.
The court also sentenced Simon Chepkurei to six months in prison for having 720 bullets illegally.
The two will serve their sentences at Malukhu Prison in Mbale.
The Division spokesman, Capt. Henry Obbo, said Nyago, a resident of Namatala in Mbale, was the first student to get such a penalty since the disarmament exercise began in 2000.
"Nyago could have been an arms trafficker. There was no justifiable explanation for him to go to school with arms," he noted.
Obbo added that 10 other suspects charged with illegal possession of firearms and murder had been transferred from the division headquarters in Bugema to Malukhu Prisons pending hearing.
He urged the public to surrender illegal guns to security agencies.
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