FALSE: ICC has not issued an arrest warrant for President Museveni and his son, Muhoozi
A YouTube video claiming that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is FALSE.
The video, narrated in Luganda, alleges that the ICC wants the two Ugandan generals over crimes against humanity. The narrator further claims that an official notice has been issued by the Court.
The video’s caption translates to, “ICC has released a warrant for the immediate arrest of Gen. Museveni and Muhoozi.”
However, there is no evidence or official communication from the ICC to support this claim.
Fadi El Abdallah, the ICC spokesperson, told PesaCheck in an email that no such arrest warrants have been issued.
“No, there have been no arrest warrants issued. Any public decision on such matters is communicated through our official channels — the ICC website and social media platforms,” he stated.
A review of the ICC website shows no record of arrest warrants for Museveni or his son, Kainerugaba, who heads the country’s military.
The video cites a New York Times article dated 11 July 2023, which reported that Museveni and Muhoozi were accused of sponsoring violence and abusing critics, according to harrowing testimony filed before the ICC.
However, the article does not mention the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for the President or his son.
PesaCheck has a YouTube video claiming that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
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This fact-check was written by Senior PesaCheck fact-checker Pius Enywaru and edited by PesaCheck copy editor Paul Tajuba.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck chief copy editor, Stephen Ndegwa.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.