Ali Fadhul ( 1940 – 2 November 2021) was a Ugandan military officer and convicted criminal who served as governor, minister and army chief of staff during the dictatorship of President Idi Amin. In course of his career, he also commanded the Simba Battalion of the Uganda Army (UA). He was one of Amin's last loyal followers during the Uganda–Tanzania War of 1978–1979. Following the conflict, Fadhul was arrested by the new Ugandan government, and convicted of murder. Sentenced to death, he spent 22 years in prison until he was pardoned by President Yoweri Museveni in 2009.
Biography
Military and political career
Waris Ali Fadhul or Ali Waris Fadhul was born in eastern Uganda, near the border to Kenya, around 1940. He was an ethnic Busoga, although he was often described as a "Sudanese" and spoke Nubian. He was forcibly recruited by the King's African Rifles in 1953; at the time he was thirteen. Following Uganda's independence in 1962, he transferred to the Uganda Army, serving throughout the presidency of Milton Obote. He took part in the 1971 Ugandan coup d'état that resulted in Obote's overthrow and initiated Idi Amin's presidency. At the time of the coup he was a corporal stationed in Moroto. Thereafter, he rose in the ranks. Described by researcher Andrew Rice as "an Amin confidante and notorious brute", Fadhul was granted command of the Uganda Army's Simba Battalion and tasked with eliminating soldiers loyal to the deposed President Obote. He consequently carried out several massacres of suspected dissident troops at the Simba barracks of Mbarara. In addition, he was possibly connected to the deaths of journalist Nicholas Stroh and Makerere University lecturer Robert Siedle. Amin promoted him to lieutenant colonel for his role in the purges of July 1971.
He was the head of the Simba Battalion from 1971 to 1974, although he was often absent from the unit. As a confidant of Amin, Fadhul repeatedly spent his time in Kampala to assist the President; his second-in-command Yusuf Gowon was thus responsible for the battalion's day-to-day operations. Fadhul later stated that he felt like a foreigner in southern Uganda, knowing neither local customs nor speaking the languages of Ankole. Facing latent insurgent activity, he reportedly relied on a number of civilian assistants to identify opponents of Amin's government. Early in the morning of 17 September 1972, Fadhul was informed of armed clashes at the Ugandan–Tanzanian border. He promptly took off for the border in a Peugeot sedan. As he was speeding toward the border, Fadhul ran into FRONASA rebels under the command of Yoweri Museveni. The rebels did not recognize him, allowing Fadhul to drive past them and get to the next telephone, and from there, he was able to inform Amin and the Simba Battalion of the rebel invasion. Afterwards, he went into hiding for a few days, only reemerging after the insurgents had been repelled by his subordinate Yusuf Gowon. After the fighting, he took part in purges of suspected rebels as well as rebel sympathizers in and around Mbarara, mostly hunting insurgents in the countryside while leaving Mbarara town to Gowon. Fadhul was later accused of having ordered the murder of Francis Xavier Tibayungwa, the former administrative secretary of Ankole, during this time. Tibayungwa was believed to have previously helped Museveni escape Uganda after the 1971 coup; the ex-official was bayonetted to death.
In the next years, Fadhul rose to governor in the northern (Acholi and Lango districts) and the western provinces (Ankole and Tooro districts). He was promoted to full colonel in May 1973, and also appointed head of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (renamed to "Simba Mechanized Brigade"). By 1974, he was Governor of Northern Province and "one of the most prominent figures in the regime" according to researcher Thomas Lowman. In this position, he mostly acted as an absentee official, often staying in Kampala and only involving himself in northern affairs by exhorting increases in cotton production, exploiting local smugglers and businesses, and suppressing rebel activity. He sometimes displayed a complete lack of knowledge of the activities of lower-ranking officials in his territories. Around 1974, he was appointed Minister for Provincial Administration. According to lower-ranking Ugandan smugglers, Fadhul exploited his military and government positions to directly participate in smuggling operations and illegally amass a fortune, while publicly condemning smugglers as "economic criminals" harming the country.