Court of Appeal upholds Nsenga’s 20-year jail term
Female sentries guard Nsenga (middle) after the judgement. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa
KAMPALA- The Court of Appeal Monday upheld the 20-year jail sentence that was handed to Jacqueline Uwera Nsenga, who was found guilty of murdering her husband.
Justices Owiny- Dollo, Elizabeth Musoke and Barishaki Cheborion ruled that prosecution proved Nsenga’s crime beyond reasonable doubt.
The three justice concurred with the High Court judge, Mr Duncan Gaswaga who convicted Nsenga of murdering her husband Juvenal Kananura Nsenga by running him over with a car at their home in Bugolobi, Kampala in January 2013.
Nsenga had appealed her 20-year jail term saying that the judge erred when he relied on unofficial translations of Kananura’s supposed dying declarations ‘my wife has killed me’ which were in their mother tongue Kinyarwanda by importing legal meaning to them.
Through her lawyer, Mr David Mpanga, Nsenga had asked the Court of Appeal to quash the conviction and sentence reasoning that prosecution did not submit any certified translations of the supposed dying declarations but instead the witnesses gave their own interpretations of the statements based on their personal comprehension.
He argued that it was a great failing for the judge to admit the loose translations offered by the deceased’s relatives into evidence and to attribute legal nuances to them.
According to Mr Mpanga, the Justice Gaswaga failed to properly evaluate evidence on record.
He also stated that Nsenga was in the car when it accelerated accidentally and knocked the gate open occasioning injuries on the deceased which ultimately caused his death.
However, the three justices ruled that all her grounds for appeal have failed thus finding no reason to quash the lower court's ruling.
