Former Assistant Inspector General of Police Asan Kasingye has credited Minister of Public Service Gen Edward Katumba Wamala with playing a key role in helping singer Iryn Namubiru secure her release from Japan following her 2013 arrest on suspicion of possessing narcotics.
Kasingye made the revelation while paying tribute to Gen Katumba Wamala, who completed 47 years of military service on July 31, 2026. He described Wamala as a mentor who significantly influenced his career in the Uganda Police Force and whose intervention also helped bring Namubiru back home.
Namubiru was arrested at Narita International Airport in Japan on May 3, 2013, after Japanese authorities reportedly discovered narcotic substances in luggage linked to her. At the time, Kasingye was serving as Director of Interpol and head of Uganda’s National Central Bureau in Kampala, and his office began engaging its counterparts in Japan over the case.
According to Kasingye, Gen Katumba Wamala, who had been appointed Chief of Defence Forces on May 23, 2013, contacted him and urged him not to allow Namubiru’s French citizenship to distract from the fact that she was Ugandan. Kasingye recalled Wamala asking him to do everything possible to assist the singer if there was a possibility that the drugs had been planted without her knowledge.
Kasingye said he subsequently consulted the Inspector General of Police and received clearance to pursue the matter after presenting information suggesting that Namubiru could have been framed. He then contacted Interpol officials in Tokyo and requested investigations into the possibility that someone had planted the narcotics
“I want to categorically say, that it was you @GenWamala that brought Iryn home,” Kasingye said in his tribute.
He added that without Wamala’s intervention and the trust he placed in information provided by the former army commander, he might have left the matter to French Interpol because of Namubiru’s citizenship.