Gay activist beheaded in Uganda

UPDATE: VICTIM NOT GAY ACTIVIST

The victim of a horrific murder in Uganda was not a gay activist.

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) have looked into the case and traced the claim that the victim was a gay activist to a former Integrity Uganda member who has been accused of using his position with the group to fraudulently obtain money, and has since returned to the anti-gay wing of the Anglican Church in Uganda.

The claim that the victim was a gay activist seems to have originated from a Rev Erich Kasirye who was quoted on the blog of GLBT Anglican group Changing Attitude UK as being the General Secretary of Integrity Uganda.

Kasirye has not been a member of Integrity Uganda for several years now and it is unclear whether a man named as the murder victim’s partner by Kasirye is a real person or not.

Victor Musaka, of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission and SMUG contacted Bishop Senyonjo who confirmed he did not make the comments attributed to him on the Changing Attitude UK blog.

However the missing priest mentioned in the article still appears to be a real person and genuinely missing.

Police had been searching for a missing Anglican priest who disappeared three weeks ago after delivering a speech in favour of gay rights when they discovered the severed head of another man, Pasikali Kashusbe, in an unsewered toilet on a rural property.

The farm belongs to Badru Kiggundu, a local Electoral Commission Chief. Kashusbe was employed on the property as a labourer.

A mutilated torso from which the genitals had been removed had been found earlier in the week and is now believed to be that of Kashusbe.

Kashusbe had been missing for four weeks and efforts by family members to locate him had been unsuccessful.

Police had arrested a suspect in the killing in a nearby building days before, but missed finding the head.

Police were called back when the farm’s owner detected a foul smell coming from the out building and smashed a hole in the wall to gain access.

Integrity Uganda’s Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a heterosexual cleric who has himself been excommunicated by the Anglican Church in Uganda for speaking in favour of gay rights, had been quoted as condemning the killing.

Two other men have been arrested in connection with the murder.