Tanzania has confirmed it will extradite an Islamic extremist rebel leader back to his native Uganda as new information surfaces about Jamil Mukulu’s dealings and presence in several East African countries.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) leader was arrested inside Tanzania late last month after allegedly crossing in from DR Congo where the ADF was increasingly active in violent attacks on villages around the gold mining town of Beni in the North Kivu area.
Mukulu is wanted in several East African countries but extradition was delayed because there is no treaty between Tanzania and Uganda and it was undetermined what country would prosecute him.
However Mukulu has now appeared before the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam to face extradition proceedings initiated by the Attorney General (AG). Meanwhile new information is surfacing about the ADF leader’s interests and assets inside Tanzania.Tanzania Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Diwani Athumani, confirmed that Mukulu owns a number of properties in Tanzania but did not say how many or where.
Unconfirmed information at the time of this writing alleges that Mukulu, who eluded capture for nearly 20 years, owns five houses in Iiala municipality, as well as a fleet of vehicles. It is also believed that while Nairobi Kenya has been Mukulu’s hub for conducting ADF economic and financial activities, his cell based in the Tanzanian coastal city of Tanga has been his base for travel, particularly to the Middle East.
In 2012, a UN report found that Mukulu was using a Tanzanian passport for some years, according to the Guardian newspaper of Tanzania.The report said Mukulu conducted his illegal activities from a hotel called Nyavyamo, near Dar es Salaam’s busy trading suburb of Kariakoo.
The report continued that Thomas Hamenyimana, who is a naturalised Tanzanian of Burundian origin, allegedly owned the hotel, which was frequented by people from DR Congo. Furthermore, and as reported by the Guardian newspaper, Jamil Mukulu was also known as Julius Elius Mashauri, who claimed to have been born in Bagamoyo in 1965. He applied and obtained a Tanzanian passport number AO 415126, under which he claimed he was a businessman resident in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
The UN report also claims Mukulu has houses in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania.
In July 2014, the UN finally blacklisted ADF as a terrorist organisation for its recruitment and use of child soldiers, killing, maiming and sexually abusing women and children, and attacks on UN peacekeepers. Before that, Mukulu had been subjected to targeted UN travel sanctions and an asset freeze since 2011.
Mukulu and the ADF began staging attacks inside Uganda nearly twenty years ago with the aim of overthrowing the Ugandan government and setting up an Islamic system under Sharia law.
Mukulu was subsequently driven into DR Congo and there hadn’t been any attacks inside Uganda for years.
Recently, however, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s urgency to wipe out ADF has risen because of the threat, however small, it poses to the exploitation of the newly discovered oil field in the Albertine basin that straddles the Uganda-DR Congo border.
