The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) has this morning withdrawn the criminal charges against the Namanve based Red Pepper Publication.
This was reached at Buganda Road Court where DPP directed the Margret to close the file over unclear reasons in a letter dated 15th March that was possibly drafted one week before President Paul Kagame’s Visit to Uganda.
Late last year, the Red Pepper premises remained under siege since 21st Nov, 2017 without producing its regular publications of The Red Pepper Newspaper, Kamunye Newspaper, Entasi Weekly Newspaper and Red Pepper Online over publication of a controversial story about Rwanda coup.
In the libel charge, the suspects are accused to have caused publication and distribution of newspaper story lines that injured the reputations of President Museveni, his young brother Gen. Salim Saleh Caleb Akanandwaho and the security minister Lt. Gen. Henry Tumukunde, and that the publication allegedly subjected the trio to hatred, contempt and Ridicule.
This led to the detention of the paper’s top Directors and News Editors. The charged Directors include, Arinaitwe Rugyendo, Patrick Mugumya, Johnson Musinguzi, Richard Tusiime and James Mujuni, and editors; Ben Byarabaha, Richard Kintu and Francis Tumusiime.
However after meeting the Head of State, the Media House was allowed to reopen on orders from above till now when the said charges have become history.
