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AFP
Kampala
A Ugandan court this week jailed four members of a Muslim sect for life on terrorism charges, a judgment denounced by some as the latest in a series of anti-Muslim rulings.
On Tuesday Kampala's High Court sentenced Sheikh Yunus Kamoga and three members of his Tabliq sect to life in prison, while two others were given 30 years each.
But a day earlier the same court had acquitted Kamoga and 13 others of the murder and attempted murder of leaders of two rival Muslim factions -- on the same evidence.
The apparently contradictory verdicts have left some observers suspicious.
"I find the decision very unusual because the main case was about the murders and the terrorism was arising from the murders, so if they were not guilty of the murders then they should be not guilty of the terrorism," said human rights lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi.
In his three-and-a-half-hour judgement Justice Muhanguzi said that while the men were not proven to have killed anyone, they had used threatening leaflets and loudhailers to intimidate rivals.
Those threats amounted to terrorism against the entire community, he ruled.
"Court finds that death threats were delivered by word of mouth and on loudspeakers, hence it was indiscriminate," Muhanguzi said.
Defence lawyer Fred Muwema thought he had an explanation for what he saw as the judgement's inconsistencies.
"I do not have direct evidence... but there is always political pressure and interference in a country like this," he said."I think the state was interested in the Tabliq community.
"Court cannot accept something and deny it at the same time," Muwema continued."That's a contradiction and a miscarriage of justice."
