Uganda charges US couple for aggravated torture of adopted son

A court in Uganda has charges and sent to prison a US couple for “aggravated torture” of their 10-year-old foster son, Africa News reports citing the police of the Eastern African country.

The court indicted the couple Friday and ordered their detention at Luzira Prison, a high-security prison facility on the outskirts of the capital Kampala, the police said in a statement.

The man and woman both 32 reportedly attended a facility for people with disabilities, between 2020 and 2022.

Police were notified by their neighbor. During a raid of the couple’s residence, police found CCTV footage showing the child had been forced to squat in an awkward position, given only cold food and forced to sleep on a “wooden platform, without mattress or bedding”.

The boy according to the police is one of the couple’s three adopted children, who arrived in the town of Jinja, Uganda, in 2017 to volunteer at a US-based nonprofit NGO. They later moved to Naguru, an upmarket suburb of Kampala, to work in a start-up.