They were only acting on orders from senior officers

Father Joseph Jones

They were the first public executions since President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986.

Father Joseph Jones told Irish radio that senior army officers were to blame.

Father Declan O'Toole, his driver and another companion were killed last Thursday evening.

Father Jones said his late colleague had been assaulted by officers a fortnight ago after asking the army to be less aggressive in their campaign to disarm local residents.

"If the army was involved, then they are the ones that should be punished and not those poor fellows who were executed yesterday, because if they did fire the shots, they were only acting on orders from senior officers," said Father Jones from the St Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions.

'Still breathing'

The BBC's Nathan Etengu witnessed the execution of Corporal James Omediyo and Private Abdullah Mohammed.

He was shot at close range by a senior officer

Nathan Etengu

"They were tied to two separate trees and had their faces covered," he told Network Africa.

"Then about 10 UPDF (Ugandan People's Defence Forces) soldiers putting on masks were brought and ordered to lie down and start firing.

They fired their weapons continuously for about two minutes before a doctor was told to check whether the two were dead, he said.

"The doctor found that one was still breathing, so he was shot at close range by a senior officer in the head using a pistol," said our correspondent.

Guns are widespread in Karamoja

The crowd of about 1,000 people who witnessed the execution mostly felt the soldiers deserved the punishment because the priest was a well-respected member of the community.

The army wanted to act quickly following the priest's murder in case local anger disrupted the government's policy of disarming people in the volatile Karamoja region, said Nathan Etengu.

President Museveni launched the campaign last December to try to persuade Karamajong cattle-keepers to hand over 40,000 weapons they are estimated to possess.