Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s grandson has made the news at the 2026 Commonwealth Games for all the wrong reasons. 25-year-old Aziz Abdul was disqualified in the third round (90+kg) after he appeared to headbutt his opponent from England, Damar Thomas. Later, instead of accepting the decision, he played the race card, saying the jury was against him because he was African black and that Thomas was sparring in his homeland. The 2026 CWG is being staged at Glasgow, Scotland — one of four countries that make up the United Kingdom.
“When you watch the previous fights of England, their boxers create a lot of fouls. I land a heavy punch on him, but they never count. Instead of counting, they deduct me. I am black African. He is in his homeland,” Abdul said after the quarterfinal bout. Had he won, it would have been Uganda’s first boxing CWG medal since Auckland 1990. The boxer continued to lash out at the jury.
“All I can say about this is the decision is not right, and I am not happy. He elbowed me. He caught me with the elbow. It [the head movement] was not intentional. I was trying to come back. How can I headbutt someone? I would not. He was the person they wanted to win. He was the winner before. I knew if I did not get a knockout, I could not win the fight,” he added.
Abdul’s grandfather, Amin, was a mass murderer. It’s estimated that almost half a million people were killed during his regime, which started in 1971 following a coup. Amin had a great fascination for Scotland and often called himself “the King of Scotland.” In the lead-up to the fight, Abdul expressed a similar wish. “In everything we do, God knows tomorrow. It’s God’s plan. I might be the new King of Scotland. It’s possible. When I arrived, I put up the flag, ’cause I like Scotland so much,” he told BBC Sport Scotland.
In the same interview, when asked if he was proud to be the Butcher of Uganda’s grandson, Abdul responded ambiguously. “Sometimes people say positive about him, but others say negative about him. That’s why I don’t want to talk more about him.
“It’s not good to say something negative about someone who is not there, and it’s not good to say something about someone negative who was not there by the time when the incident happened, if it happened,” he said.
