Dictator’s grandson blasts ‘unfair’ result after disqualification in first fight

Glasgow: It took less than 10 minutes for one of the most highly anticipated boxing matches on the Commonwealth Games schedule to descend into chaos. On Thursday morning (AEST), a large crowd flocked to the SEC Centre to watch Uganda’s Aziz Abdul take on Englishman Damar Thomas in a super heavyweight bout. Abdul is the grandson of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who once proclaimed himself “the king of Scotland” and had a fixation with the country.

Amin, a former heavyweight boxer, ruled Uganda for eight years. Human rights groups say as many as 500,000 people were killed and the country’s Asian population expelled during that time, and he also presided over the country’s economic collapse. He was forced out in 1979 and was never tried for his crimes in an international court.

He died in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Abdul had courted media attention earlier this week by saying, “My grandfather’s achievements inspired me,” and saying he wanted to become the “baddest man in the Commonwealth, the baddest man in Glasgow and the new king of Scotland”. However, Abdul’s ambition to take Commonwealth gold was short-lived.

He was disqualified in his match against Thomas during the third round for headbutting his opponent. His disqualification and the referee’s decision prompted a lashing of boos and jeers from his supporters in the crowd. Abdul was furious when speaking to media after the aborted fight, beginning the media conference by pointing at a journalist in the scrum.

“You I don’t like,” he said pointing at the reporter, shaking his head. He then spoke to a member of the Ugandan team, going back and forth before taking questions from journalists. “That decision is not correct,” he said when asked for his reaction to the disqualification “That decision was on one side.”

“All I can say about this ... I’m not happy about the decision.” Abdul then referred to his opponent by the n-word, adding, “I will get him next time …

anywhere in the future I’ll get him … if not now, anytime in the future, after five years or two years or 10 years ... I will show him that Aziz Ringo is a real warrior.”

When asked to expand on why the disqualification for headbutting was unfair, Abdul said it had not been intentional and his opponent had elbowed him, among other infractions, multiple times throughout the fight. He said it was a trend among English fighters. He said his English opponent was given favour because he was on “home” soil and said he had landed heavy punches on Thomas that did not count.

“Instead of counting, they deduct my points, they warn me,” he said. “I’m a black African, OK ... I know, he’s in his homeland.”

He questioned why the officials were “scared about this fight”. “Why couldn’t they let the fight continue,” he said. “What was wrong in the fight?”

Specifically asked if he was saying the judges had wanted Thomas to win, Abdul said “yes”. “I don’t know [why]. Because he’s at home, he’s at f---ing home man.”

Abdul ended the interview by saying “it was God’s plan” and repeatedly wishing his opponent luck for the next match. Thomas chose his words very carefully in the media zone after the fight, with his minder telling journalists to “keep it about the boxing”. “Like I said, I got the job done …

the job is done,” he said. Asked by this masthead what he had expected of the fight with Abdul, Thomas said “literally that. “I didn’t expect anything else.”

Thomas also said he didn’t want the fight “to end like that” and it “was not how he wanted it to go”. Follow our coverage of the Commonwealth Games with live blogs covering every moment of the action from 6pm AEST daily. News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday.

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