The International Crimes Division of the High Court has convicted two senior bosses of labour export company Middle East Consultants for promoting human trafficking and forgery.

The duo was arrested in 2019 for various human trafficking related cases.

The convicted are Benon Kunywana, 36 and Godfrey Kyalimpa, 48 who held positions of general manager and vetting officer respectively at the company.

In the matter handled by Okui Jacqueline, a senior State Attorney in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the two were convicted after pleading guilty of attempting to traffic about 50 migrant workers in 2019.

They were also found guilty of using forged documents purpotedly from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development with attempting to traffic Ugandans out of Uganda.

At the commencement of the trial, the duo opted for a plea bargain and were accordingly convicted and sentenced by Justice Wejuli Richard to a fine of Shs2 million in respect of each count of promoting trafficking in persons and in default two years and 10 days imprisonment.

They were further convicted and sentenced to a fine of Shs3 million in respect of forgery and in default three years and 10 days imprisonment.

The imprisonment terms are to run concurrently.

According to the charge sheet, Kyalimpa and Kunywana on February 12, 2019 attempted to traffic 50 migrant workers through Entebbe International Airport.

On the same day, the two officials used a forged document purportedly signed by Lawrence Egulu from the Ministry of Labour for purposes of trafficking the group from Uganda.

However, their plan was cut shot when it was discovered that they had scanned Egulu's signature onto the document without his consent. Consequently, they were detained by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit.

Meanwhile, the unit had earlier recovered over Shs1.5 billion which had been paid by hundreds of youth to the company, promising them jobs abroad which did not materialise.