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KAMPALA â Police are investigating a senior SC Villa official over allegations that he had forceful homosexual relations with three young men.
The official, who is a wealthy property owner in the city, vehemently denies the allegations. âThese are just rumours that have been going around about me,â the official, (name withheld for legal reasons,) told The Monitor by telephone on Monday.
âThey are just malicious rumours,â he said. The stunning allegations made against the official date back to May 7, 2004, when he turned up at Old Kampala Police Station and recorded a statement in which he accused three young men of attacking him in his home in one of the city suburbs and vandalising his car.
The three men, whose names are being withheld, were arrested and taken to the police station where they recorded statements. In their statements, the men, who are all in their 20s, made counter allegations against the official, whom they accused of drugging and sodomising them.
In a statement The Monitor has seen, one of the men alleged the official had taken him to Speke Hotel in Kampala and bought him drinks.
He claimed he woke up at 5:00am and found himself in bed with the official in the latterâs home. He also claims that when he went to the toilet, he discovered that he had been sodomised and that the official apologised and gave him a Toyota Corolla FX car to make amends.
The two other men claim in their statements that they suffered a similar fate and were given Shs2 million and Shs3 million each to settle the matter.
Things fall apart
According to the statements, one of the three men pestered the official for the logbook of the car he had been given so that he could transfer it into his names.
At around this time, the three young men, who all work together in a music group, discovered that they had all been in contact with the official, and began haranguing him for the logbook.
They threatened to take the story to the press if he did not handover the logbook and sign a transfer form. To appease them, they stated, the tycoon took them on holiday to Nairobi and promised them an additional Shs10 million, on top of the logbook and signed transfer forms.
On returning, the promises were not met. The men raided the tycoonâs home and forced him to sign the transfer forms before vandalising his car.
One of the men wrote out a public warning, in Luganda, in which he accused the official of having homosexual relations with young men in the city by either drugging them or luring them with offers of cash.
The warning, a copy of which The Monitor has obtained, shows a photo of the official seated on a plastic chair and dressed in a tunic (kanzu). The author claims in the note that he stole the photograph from the tycoonâs home during an earlier visit.
The tycoon reacts
In a telephone interview with The Monitor on Monday, the official described the allegations as âmaliciousâ but said he knew the three young men as friends.
âAll of this is malicious. I made a complaint to the police after these boys took away things from my home, including pocket money and a mobile phone and they were caught red-handed with them.
âThey were my friends and I had known them for five to six years. They had come to my home several times but then things disappeared on three different occasions,â he said.
In a 2003 interview with The Monitor, an SC Villa official denied allegations that he was homosexual and had partners in SC Villaâs playing staff.
The tycoon has two children, but is not married. The Old Kampala Police Station Assistant Divisional CID Officer at the Station, Mr Bernard Kiirya-Sisye, declined to comment. The allegations against the official come after SC Villaâs former coach, Milutin Sredojevic quit the club prematurely last month, citing, among other reasons, the alleged harassment of club players by an unnamed club official | 
