Ugandan prosecutors charged a tribal king with murder Tuesday, accusing him of backing a separatist militia in his kingdom where weekend fighting between his guards and security forces left at least 87 people dead. The Rwenzururu King Charles Wesley Mumbere is accused of commanding a militia from his palace with the aim of creating an independent state straddling Uganda and the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Court sat this afternoon. He has been charged with murder," Uganda's judiciary spokesman Solomon Muyita told AFP, without giving further details. Police and army officers stormed Mumbere's palace in the western town of Kasese on Sunday in a hail of gunfire and explosions, dragging him out and placing him under arrest after he failed to accept an ultimatum to disband his royal guards, the authorities have said.
According to police, fighting first broke out on Saturday when a joint patrol of police and troops was attacked by the royal guards and quickly spread to surrounding towns. Kasese district police commander Sam Odong told AFP another 25 bodies had been found on Monday in towns outside Kasese, however it was not clear whether they were civilians or royal guards.
Police had earlier reported that 16 police officers and 46 guards were killed in the weekend unrest, bringing the total death toll to 87. Another 139 guards have been arrested. Amnesty International on Monday expressed alarm at what "appears to be shocking examples of unlawful killings and a complete disregard for human rights during the arrests".
The Rwenzururu kingdom, of the Bakonzo tribe, is a modern one. It began as a separatist movement of the same name when the Bakonzo - tired of being subjected to the rule of another tribe given preference under British rule - declared its own kingdom in 1962.