200809232106 | Britain jails Ugandan presidential aide

Britain jails Ugandan presidential aide

LONDON - A Ugandan government official was jailed for 12 months yesterday in a landmark corruption case that centred on the security measures put in place for a Commonwealth summit attended by Gordon Brown and the Queen. Ananias Tumukunde, a senior science and technology adviser to President Yoweri Museveni, pleaded guilty to accepting more than £50,000 in bribes from a UK-based company that trained the Ugandan army on how to counteract chemical and biological threats in advance of last year’s summit.

The court was told that Tumukunde approached Niels Tobiasen, managing director of CBRN Team Ltd, a Wiltshire-based security specialist, for what he called “local tax” payments after CBRN signed a £210,000 contract to provide training and equipment in advance of the Commonwealth meeting in Kampala last November.

Five payments, totalling about £83,000, were transferred to bank accounts controlled by Tumukunde and Rusoke Tagaswire, a Ugandan army officer, who is still at large. Tobiasen, a Danish national, is due to be sentenced later this week at the same court.