Two Ugandan soldiers were executed last night (Irish time) after a hastily convened military court found them guilty of murdering Galway priest Father Declan O'Toole.
Cpl James Omediyo and Pte Abdullah Mohammed " confessed they did it for material gain. They wanted to rob Father O'Toole and they shot him. If they didn't, he might identify them later," said an army spokesman.
The soldiers were tied to trees and excuted in front of 1,000 people.
Father O'Toole (31) was found dead in his pick-up truck last Thursday on a lonely desert road in the eastern Karamoja region. Two Ugandan parish workers travelling with him were also killed.
The Ugandan government - which is a major beneficiary of Irish Government aid - has been highly embarrassed by the incident.
Last night fellow missionaries repeated concerns with both the speed of the trial - which does not allow for appeals - and the execution. "This is revenge. It's not what Declan would have wanted," said Mill Hill Missionary Father Brendan Jordan. He added that a court martial did not allow for a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding the killing.
"When there is no transparency you don't know if they have got the right people." The Irish Embassy in Kampala also conveyed its "unease" to the Ugandan government.
"We indicated that a comprehensive process would have been more helpful," said a spokesman.
Father Joe Jones, bursar with Mill Hill Missionaries in Dublin, said: "Definitely there was undue haste."
"It all seems too opportunistic and we have to ask if these two men were scapegoated."
He said everyone wanted to see justice being done but he didn't know if the right men were found guilty.
"We would like to see due process being followed but we object to the death penalty and we wouldn't like to see reprisals. But there's nothing you can do from here if a government like that decides that this is how it will show the world that it means business."
However, the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF) rejected any suggestion of impropriety.
"If we had spent two years they would have said we were hiding something. Let them not tie our hands. The field court martial is a fast process," said the spokesman.
Tensions have been high between the army and locals in Karamoja since mid-February, when soldiers started forcibly disarming pastoralists.
Karamoja is awash with an estimated 50,000 weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles from the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.
Just 12 days before his death Father O'Toole was assaulted by a soldier after complaining about army brutality against villagers during the disarmament process.
"A soldier came up with a stick and lashed me across the back. Meanwhile, four others were ready with sticks if I resisted but I just left the scene to the sound of their laughter," he reported to his superiors by e-mail.
Father O'Toole left the area the next day but returned shortly afterwards. He was killed in the ambush four days later.
The army says it identified his killers when local tribesmen followed their tracks from the scene of the shooting back to a nearby barracks.