Uganda convicts two men for 2010 bombing

Uganda on Wednesday convicted two men who pleaded guilty for their role in July 2010 bomb attacks that killed at least 76 people, the region's worst attacks in more than a decade.

Edris Nsubuga, a Ugandan, on Tuesday admitted to charges of terrorism while fellow countryman Muhamoud Mugisha pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit terrorism.

They will be sentenced on Friday, while the trial of 12 other suspects is due to resume on November 15.

Prosecutors dropped murder charges against Nsubuga, calling on the judge not to impose the maximum sentence of the death penalty for the terrorism conviction, as he had admitted his guilt and cooperated with authorities.

"In the circumstance the state prays for an appropriate and deterrent custodial sentence," Lino Anguza, a state prosecutor, told the court.

Twin suicide bombers struck bars in Kampala where people had gathered to watch the World Cup final on July 11 last year.

The attacks were claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels in revenge for Ugandan military involvement in the African Union's force protecting the Western-backed Somali government.

Eleven suspects -- including seven Kenyans, three Ugandans and a Tanzanian -- pleaded not guilty to murder and terrorism charges earlier this week. One other Ugandan pleaded not guilty to two lesser charges.

"The sentencing of the two convicts will be on Friday, and the hearing for the rest of the suspects will begin 15 November this year," said judge Alfonse Owiny-Dollo.

Nsubuga admitted escorting a suicide bomber to a busy rugby club and later detonating a remote-controlled device that he planted at the venue.

He claimed that he had been threatened with beheading if he pulled out of the mission.

"I was just a human being trapped in a web of delusion and manipulation ... I am reformed and I am very remorseful," Nsubuga told the court.

Mugisha admitted fighting for the Shebab militia in Somalia and helping militant leaders plot the Kampala attacks. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.

"I beg court to forgive me and I apologise to all Ugandans for what happened," Mugisha said.

Prosecutors said that both men would testify in the trial of the remaining suspects.

The bombings were the worst in East Africa since attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that killed 223 people in 1998.

Most of the embassy attacks suspects detained over the attacks were held and tried in the United States.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the Comoran-born suspected mastermind of the 1998 bombings who became Al Qaeda's presumed most senior operative in East Africa, was killed earlier this year in Somalia.

Many observers saw his rising influence within the Somali Shebab movement waging an insurgency against the government behind the Kampala bombings, which sent shockwaves across Uganda where they are known as 7/11.