Ugandan extradited to US over cartel arms charges

Katungi Michael Mpeirwe, a Ugandan former military intelligence officer and diplomat, has been extradited to the United States to face charges over an alleged plot to supply weapons to Mexican drug cartels, Uganda's prisons chief said.

Johnson Byabashaija, Uganda's commissioner general of prisons, said Mpeirwe had been handed over to US authorities.

Washington announced in July that Mpeirwe and three other suspects had been charged with conspiring to supply about $54 million worth of weapons, including to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion.

US prosecutors allege the suspects intended to provide machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-personnel mines, and also sought to supply surface-to-air missiles, drones and anti-aircraft guns.

A Ugandan security official said Mpeirwe was arrested on June 27 in an upmarket part of Kampala and brought before a court two days later. Uganda's judiciary said at the end of August that his extradition was imminent.