Makindye Prison is a

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

government state-run

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

which became notorious for

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...

s and

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

of government opponents during the time of Ugandan dictator,

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 30 May 192816 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until Uganda–Tanzania War, his overthrow in 1979. He ruled as a Military dictatorship, ...

. Makindye Prison started and was built as a conventional civilian prison. It was turned into a

military prison A military prison is a prison operated by a military. Military prisons are used variously to house prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, those whose freedom is deemed a national security risk by the military or national authorities, and members o ...

in 1971 when

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute Power (social and political), power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to r ...

came to power. Amin's authorities then started detaining opponents of the government there. John Kakonge, Uganda's former Minister of Agriculture under

Milton Obote Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan politician who served as the second prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and the second president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and later from 1980 to 1985. A Lango, ...

, was taken to Makindye Prison where his skull was crushed by a hammer allegedly by other prisoners. According to one version, prisoners were told that by hitting him, they would be saving themselves a similar fate. In turn, each prisoner was given a hammer to do as the previous one had done believing the same. A second report stated that prisoners were placed in a line and bludgeoned the person in front while waiting for a blow from behind. * Bob Astles was imprisoned for seventeen weeks in the prison during 1972, transferred to

Luzira Maximum Security Prison Luzira Maximum Security Prison is a maximum security prison for both men and women in Uganda. Until Kitalya Maximum Security Prison opened in 2020, Luzira was the only maximum security prison in the country and housed Uganda's death-row inmates. ...

and released in 1985. * Basil Kiiza Bataringaya was imprisoned here before his execution in 1972. *

Benedicto Kiwanuka Benedicto Kagimu Mugumba Kiwanuka (8 May 1922 – 22 September 1972) was a Ugandan politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Uganda. He was the leader of the Democratic Party, and one of the political figures in Uganda ...

was a Ugandan lawyer who was mutilated, castrated and finally immolated in the prison in September 1972. The prison is still located in

Makindye Makindye is a hill in Kampala, Uganda's largest city and capital. The name also refers to the neighborhood that sits on that hill. Makindye is also the seat of Makindye Division, one of the five administrative zones of the city of Kampala. Locati ...

, one of the suburbs of

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...

city in Uganda.

References

Prisons in Uganda {{Uganda-struct-stub