Four Ugandans hanged in China over drugs
By Drone Staff
Four Ugandans were sentenced to death in south China’s Guangdong Province, after being convicted of drugs smuggling.
They were part of five women and three men (all Africans) convicted of trafficking drugs and were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a court in Guangzhou city. Four of the nine convicts were in their 20s, the state Chinese news agency reported.
In China, the reprieve (stay of execution) normally results in a death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, dependent on the prisoner’s behaviour over the next two years.
Chinese officials said the biggest bust was in the past when a Ugandan woman, Jean Ndawula Kirunda, 39, was arrested trying to smuggle 1.98kg (4.35 pounds) of a heroin mixture into China.
Kirunda, arrested at Guangzhou airport after disembarking a flight from Bangkok, was among the four Ugandans who were convicted. The others were Annet Namisango, 38, Habiba Musa, 29, and Charles Candia, 23. Habiba was arrested while trying to smuggle 1.2kg of cut heroin after swallowing the packaged drug apparently with the intent to retrieve it later.
The group also included two Benin nationals and two others from Zimbabwe. The convictions came in six separate cases uncovered during the past years.
The youngest person convicted was 22-year-old Taapatsa Lauraine Itayirufaro from Zimbabwe.
Seven of the convicted traffickers were busted trying to smuggle drugs into Guangzhou’s Baiyun airport, with several flying in from Bangkok in Thailand, it said. The convicts were said to have carried drug parcels ranging from 654 to 1,986 grams. Six of them had swallowed the drugs wrapped in pellets.
Uganda’s ambassador said that 35 Ugandans had been arrested since the operation against drug smugglers intensified. The group, he said, included 18 women.
Many of these were young people in their twenties. Some of them were fresh graduates. The vice was on the rise. Most Ugandans were conduits contacted by big networks in West Africa who promised them visas and tickets to Asia. Most of the transactions were sealed in Dubai.
He added that of the 35, his mission had through tough negotiations managed to get the death sentences of 20 reduced to life imprisonment. He said the Government was considering negotiating an extradition treaty with the Chinese government.
The number of Ugandans arrested abroad over drug trafficking has been on the rise over the past few years, causing serious concern to the Ugandan authorities.
After these people were arrested and interrogated, they revealed details and operations of their (Nigerian) masters in Kampala. They pleaded for mercy. There was a detailed file containing classified testimonies of the 10 Ugandans, describing the bases and nature of the Nigerian drug mafia in Kampala.
A Ugandan woman, Rose Birungi, was jailed in the UK for drug trafficking. Birungi, who was the minister of information of Toro Kingdom, was arrested at Heathrow Airport when sniffer dogs detected narcotics in her luggage.