By Our Reporter
NATIONAL
A prominent city blogger has finally been netted by security officials for spreading fake propaganda and inciting the public using twitter accounts with titles of top government officials and institutions.
The suspect Kasagga Bashir aka Kasagga Matovu, is paying for his sins after being charged with four counts of unauthorized modification of computer material under the Computer Misuse Act 2011.
He was nabbed by officials from the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) and Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). Kassaga violated code sections 14 (1) and (6) of the act by spreading hate and attacks toward government officials and institutions.
He used twitter accounts of officials like that of Speaker of Parliament Anita Among @Anita Among, the Uganda People’s Defence Spokesperson Brig Felix Kulaigye @UPDFspokesperson, Balaam Barugahare Ateenyi @Balaam 1980 and Uganda Police Force @PoliceUga, to post demeaning messages.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga told journalists at the police headquarters on Monday that during the months of August and September, 2022, Kassaga faked tweets on the above accounts about the death of Gen Salim Saleh and inciting violence.
“Some of his recent posts were those indicating the death of Saleh saying ‘guys this time around celebrate responsibly, he has died,” Enanga says.
“With requisite intent and knowledge, used his social engineering skills/techniques to create, obtain and modify tweets and screenshots of the twitter handles. He then allegedly modified the codes to cause the sites to display a string of pictures and words that were offensive,” says Enanga.
The suspect according to police has been the leader of the network of social media abusers. His communication matrix is linked to thousands of group members. It also clearly shows selected individuals and political groups, that have been glorifying and sponsoring his offensive behaviour, towards government officials and institutions.
He says police have since retrieved a series of posts, charts, accounts and pictorials, shared with 6,588 followers on Twitter and 5,625 Facebook followers. Police have also recovered electronic gadgets used by Kassaga to originate fake posts on twitter.
Enanga says the Cyber Crime Unit at CID Headquarters, will continue to crackdown on such as well as methods of mitigating risks by pursuing perpetrators of cybercrime.
These are some of the tweets Kassaga wrote as shared by Enanga;
He originated a tweet claiming it was from the Defence spokesperson.
“The UPDF appeals to the public to remain calm as we serve food at the send off of our gallant statesman Gen Elly Tumwine. We however warn NUP supporters not to attend our burial in Kazo. You have mocked and hurt the family of our deceased,” Kassanga wrote
In a fake tweet from the Uganda Police he wrote; ” We want to sound a warning to the general public that we shall come for you and apply iron fists on you. If you cant learn some morals, our safe houses shall teach you, “
From Uganda Police again, he wrote ” In light of instilling morals to this rotten generation that has made it a habit to jubilate when government officials die, we have arrested one tracy Manle an NUP supporter to serve as an example to the rest, the suspect posted a video celebrating the death of Gen Elly Tumwine.”
On behalf of the speaker Among Kassaga says; “It is with great happiness that I have received the death of Gen Elly Tumwine, I even told the pope that this deceased man tortured Ugandans. When I was still in the FDC, Gen Tumwine abducted Besigye’s supporters, it is good that he has died.”
