ISO Director Kaka Bagyenda fired: Here’s a look at his profile and accusations against him

President Yoweri Museveni has fired Internal Security Organisation (ISO) director Col Kaka Bagyenda, and replaced him with Lt Col Charles Oluka.

Oluka previously led technical services at ISO.

Emmy Katabazi will deputize Oluka.

Katabazi is a former head of the media desk at the security agency.

Museveni sacked Kaka following several complaints of ISO’s involvement in criminal acts.

Kaka is said to have recently had a confrontation with elite Special Forces Command (SFC) operatives Museveni sent out to gather information on safe houses.

He was also accused of offering false intelligence reports to the commander-in-chief, some of which nearly led to war between Rwanda and Uganda.

COL KAKA BAGYENDA’S SINS

Bagyenda has severally been accused of manning various safe houses in which hundreds have been tortured.

Kaka has also been accused of self-assigning himself the duties of the Uganda Police Force, including arrests.

“Despite the lack of statutory mandate to arrest and detain, the same has continually detained citizens in places not gazetted by law and beyond the statutory period of 48 hours,” complained then Uganda Law Society President Simon Kinobe in August 2019.

“The most notorious safe house used by ISO is in Kyengera protected by the military police under the command of the UPDF.”

About 10 months after his appointment, Kaka told local media “ISO is not taking over the role of the police neither are we in conflict with them but we are only providing support.”

“In this work of ending rampant criminality in Kampala Metropolitan and elsewhere, we are working with External Security Organization and the police,” he was quoted by Daily Monitor as saying.

Yet at the peak of the probe into the murder of former police publicist Andrew Felix Kaweesi, ISO and police jostled over which agency should take over the security of Christine Mbabazi Muhoza, a vital witness.

Muhoza was said to have been so close to Kaweesi, and believed to have had a recording that could have given investigators useful clues into the killing.

Besides the several reports of illegal arrests, unlawful detentions and claims of torture, impunity by Kaka’s ISO got exposed when the agency denied MPs access to safe houses.

Human Rights Committee Chairperson Janepher Egunyu Nantume had led fellow MPs on a fact-finding mission after several claims of torture against detainees in safe houses in Nkokonjeru, Kyengera and Nalukolongo.

In July 2020, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) raided some of the safe houses run by Kaka’s ISO. Almost three months later, Kaka is out.

WHO IS FRANK KAKA BAGYENDA?

• Year of Birth: 1952
• Place of Birth: Ibanda, Uganda
• Education: Bachelor of Commerce (Makerere University, 1974-1977)

Career

• Ministry of Public Service
• Masindi District agricultural officer
• 1981: Joined Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA)
• Took up the name Kaka to hide his identity
• Undertook covert intelligence operations in the 1981-86 bush war
• Key in NRA’s capture of Masindi Army Barracks on February 20, 1984
• 1986-1993: Commanded a Kampala brigade and later in Northern Uganda; headed the military’s transport directorate; was a member of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) – this unit morphed into CMI.
• 1993: Retired from the UPDF at the rank of Major
• 1994: Joined the Rwanda Patriotic Front
• 2013: Promoted to rank of Colonel
• 2017: appointed ISO Director
• October 08, 2020: Fired