After being discharged from Murchison Bay Prison referral hospital, former Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) boss in charge of external relations and also the former African Union policy adviser Michael Katungi Mpeirwe boasted to fellow inmates that being a highly trained Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldier, he is not scared of the America’s feared Guantanamo Bay prison
On Monday, Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Ritah Kidasa Wanyama remanded Katungi to Luzira Murchison Prison following an extradition request by the United States government over alleged drug trafficking, arms smuggling and terrorism-related offences.
This investigative website reported how Katungi collapsed at C-4 ward where he was first admitted and he was rushed to prison’s referral hospital at night.
By Wednesday, he had fully recovered and discharged from the hospital and returned to A-1 ward where he is currently sleeping.
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After introducing himself and explaining to the ward leadership why he was remanded to prison, fellow inmates were scared when they learnt that Katungi is desperately struggling to protest President Museveni government’s move of extraditing him to America where he has to face criminal trial.
According to highly placed prison sources, one of the inmates asked Katungi weather he is not scared of being taken to America and detained at the world’s most feared Guantanamo Bay prison.
“Man, I’m very scared because chances are high that you’re going to be detained at Guantanamo Bay prison when the court allows your extradition. Are you ready to face that situation” a source quoted one of the inmates during the discussion.
In response, Katungi was open to his fellow inmates that chances are high that he is going to be extradited to United States to face criminal trials but boasted that he is ready to face that situation because he is a trained soldier who is ready to face all the hard situations that come his way.
Guantanamo Bay detention facility is a high-security United States of America military prison in Cuba.
It was established in 2002 to indefinitely hold suspected terrorists and enemy combatants operating largely outside United States of America civilian jurisdiction. It became a global focal point for human rights controversies, legal limbo, and accusations of torture.
According to the indictment filed in the United States, Katungi is accused, together with Bulgarian national Peter Dimitrov Mirchev, Kenyan national Elisha Odhiambo Asumo and Tanzanian national Subiro Osmund Mwapinga, of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, allegedly knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the drugs would be unlawfully imported into the United States.
The four are also accused of conspiring to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices, in furtherance of a drug trafficking offence, and of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, investigators allege that from at least September 2022, the suspects conspired to supply military-grade weapons to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful transnational criminal organisations.
The alleged weapons included machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, sniper rifles, anti-personnel mines, night-vision equipment, anti-aircraft weapons and surface-to-air missile systems.
U.S. authorities allege the suspects believed the cartel intended to use the weapons to facilitate large-scale cocaine trafficking into the United States.
On February 20, 2025, the CJNG was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organisation under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224.
According to the indictment, Mirchev allegedly recruited Asumo to obtain a fraudulent End-User Certificate (EUC) from an African country to conceal the intended destination of the weapons. Asumo is then alleged to have recruited Katungi, who in turn recruited Mwapinga.
Prosecutors allege the group obtained an end-user certificate from Tanzania authorising the importation of AK-47 rifles. Using that documentation, Mirchev and others allegedly exported a test shipment of 50 AK-47 assault rifles, magazines and ammunition from Bulgaria, intending that the weapons would ultimately reach the CJNG.
The indictment further alleges that the group later planned to supply weapons worth approximately Shs224bn including anti-aircraft systems and drones, while using falsified arms control documentation to disguise the true end user.
Court records also indicate that Mirchev had previously been implicated in supplying arms to convicted international arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
Katungi’s matter at Buganda Road was adjourned to 10th of July 2026 for further hearing of the application made by the Director of Public Prosecution after authorising all paperwork made by Government of Uganda officials allowing his extradition.
