Reviews & Profiles
Thrown into prison for no reason
Samuel Sentambule peruses through the notes he wrote, as well as letters his children sent him while he was in jail . His wife Julian Gombya looks on. The family lost their business during the time he was in prison and have had to start all over again. PHOTOs by Edgar R. Batte
Posted Monday, February 11 2013 at 02:00
In Summary
Having been accused of killing his friend and fellow businessman, Samuel Sentambule was sent to jail, only to be released four years later because there was no evidence.
The judge then rescheduled the case for March 20, 2012. He was, however, not presented in court on that date. In August, the case was dismissed because the DPP failed to bring evidence to pin him and Sentambule was set free. He got his passport back, walking free again after four years in prison for no reason.
Sentambule’s lawyer is now suing the state. “I have to start afresh like I am from high school,” he says. He has a message to judicial system too. “There are so many people who are suffering because they don’t have the fighting power… I had five lawyers who I paid Shs5m each,” he talks of the money he spent to get his freedom. He adds, “The government has to find a system of tackling cases in time. Delayed justice makes you handicapped. Police officers don’t investigate. In my case, they didn’t even know where my shop was. DPP prosecutes people without evidence.”
“For most of the first year I was broken. I kept asking myself questions and felt bitter that I was framed and I could not get justice,” he says. But he was quick to realise he was shouldering an emotional burden so heavy it would easily break him, so he began trying to forget it by playing football. He used the time to write some prison memoirs, scribblings he now thinks should be compiled into a book.
Sentambule’s is not a unique case as not everyone in prison is guilty. But those people continue to undergo trauma away from active public life simply because courts do not have the capacity to deal with the backlog of cases. In fact, the High Court in Kampala recently revealed plans to dispose of inactive files, to get rid of the backlog – one of the greatest challenges facing the judiciary today.
This is a step in the right direction but Sentambule will still feel bitter at the injustice, having spent four years, in which he could have done so much, in jail.
rbatte@ug.nationmedia.com
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