Kampala — WOMEN activists last Thursday clashed with judicial officers over the Court of War Crime's capability to protect witnesses.

"How sure are we that the witnesses will not be kept in ungazetted places?" asked Sarah Apio, a Gulu-based lawyer.

Sarah Kasande, a Kampala lawyer, wondered what laws the court would use and if the State would afford to pay victims, saying a big number of torture victims had not yet been compensated.

The women were speaking during a workshop on gender and sex violence and international justice mechanisms.

The workshop was organised by the Uganda Association of Women lawyers at the Serena Hotel in Kampala.

Responding to the queries, Lawrence Tweyanze, the registrar of the war crimes division, said judges of the court, investigators and prosecutors had been trained to handle the cases with competence.

He said the officials had visited courts in The Hague, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Bosnia, where such cases had been handled.