Desire Mirembe’s family still waiting for justice 5 years on

Every parent’s wish is to ensure that their children are safe whenever they are away from their watchful eyes.
Parents will do everything within their means to ensure the safety of their children. A parent will surrender his/her ATM card to ensure his/her child has money to get out of trouble or keep in touch on WhatsApp and other communication medium. Any distress message from their children is considered an emergency.

On July 6, 2015, a day after arriving in Paris, France, for a short holiday, Mr Emmanuel Musoke, a resident of Makindye in Kampala, unsuccessfully tried to contact his daughter, Desire Mirembe, back in Kampala.

After realising that all his messages went unanswered, Mr Musoke, Kalungu District chairperson, contacted his close friend, Mr George Mutabazi, the no nonsense Lwengo District chairperson, to help find his missing daughter. Mr Mutabazi also contacted then police director for Kampala Metropolitan Area, the late Andrew Felix Kaweesi.

Meanwhile, Mr Musoke also contacted a one Maggie, then a student at Nairobi University and his daughter’s close friend.
Maggie informed Mr Musoke that she had received a message from Mirembe’s phone number that read: “Maggie, I have gone to Jinja with a stranger but I am scared.”

“When Maggie saw the message, she suspected it had been sent by her boyfriend, Matthew Kirabo,” narrates Mr Musoke.
On realising her friend was missing, Maggie put pressure on Kirabo to produce Mirembe.

Body found
As the search for Mirembe entered day two on July 7, 2015, a young boy walking through a sugar plantation in Lugazi, Buikwe District, stumbled upon a body.

He first saw a shoe and following the trail, found the body concealed in sugarcane with a slit throat.
The killer had used a surgical blade to cut the victim’s throat.

The murder
Mirembe, then just 18 years and a Second Year Medical student, was on July 6, 2015 allegedly murdered by Kirabo, her boyfriend and fellow medical student at Makerere University.

Mirembe was raised by a single parent after her mother left for the US when she was two years old.

“I would wake up at 4am every day, bathe her and her elder brother and then drop them off at Kampala Kindergarten,” Mr Musoke recalls.

He adds: “This routine never changed even when she joined Kampala Parents School. As a single parent, my life resolved around my children. I never went to discotheques but spent most of the time with my children.”

Mirembe scored Aggregate 4 in her Primary Leaving Examinations and she joined St Mt Mary’s College Namagunga in Mukono District, from where she completed her Senior Six.

Although she had earned a government university scholarship, Mirembe’s wish to major in speech therapy made her miss the scholarship since it had been offered for a different course.

“I would pay Shs4m every semester to enable her pursue the course she wanted,” recalls the father.
While at Makerere, Mirembe stayed in Akamwesi Hostel.

After they joined university and thinking his children had now come of age and could relatively take care of themselves, Mr Musoke’s love for politics pushed him to contest for the Kalungu District chairperson seat.
Every weekend, Mr Musoke travelled to Kampala to see his children.

“We were very close, she was my friend; we would spend most of the time together. Sometimes we would go abroad for holidays together,” he shares.

Mr Musoke blames himself for separating with his daughter, saying his absence might have pushed his daughter from attending Mass at Christ the King Church to joining the Pentecost Phaneroo to find comfort.

Meeting Kirabo playing the piano at Phaneroo seems to have drawn the two close and onwards to her fate.
Since July 7, 2015, after his daughter’s body was found in the sugar plantation, Mr Musoke says his life took a nose dive.

“Life has no meaning anymore. All my life depended on my children. I only got two children and I gave them my all. Everything I wanted my daughter to achieve, she achieved but her life was cut short,” he narrates.

An empty hole created by the killing of his daughter has been exuberated by his daughter’s empty room, the first and last thing he has to look at every day.

“I am planning to leave the house because of too much memories. That is the house where Mirembe was born and raised. I am contemplating selling it off and I move away,” he reveals.

Mirembe was always the master in the house, she would pick the menu, prevail on her brother to tidy up his room, she was the treasurer; she kept the ATM cards and was always the one to demand rent from tenants.

Seeking justice

“After she was killed, people at home told me there was a boy who used to pick her from home and they would drive to Makindye while teaching her how to drive,” Mr Musoke says.
Police reportedly told Mirembe’s father that before she disappeared, Kirabo allegedly went to Wandegeya Police Station in Kampala and registered a case alleging that there were people trailing him and his girlfriend.
Mr Musoke, quoting police reports, Kirabo allegedly invited Mirembe to Café Javas at Oasis Mall in Kampala, where they had a meal.
After eating, Kirabo reportedly bought two juice packs and they later drove away in his mother’s car.

According to Mr Musoke, police tracked Mirembe’s movements, which showed that after receiving a phone call from Kirabo, she went to Café Javas at Oasis Mall. They then drove to Lugazi.

Kirabo allegedly confessed to murdering Mirembe.

“He said he could not stand losing her to another person. He said he loved her so much and could not stand another person taking her,” the deceased’s father says.

He reportedly drugged her drink after she excused herself to withdraw money from an ATM at Oasis Mall. He then alleged used a surgical blade to slit her.

Arrest and trial
Kirabo was charged at Jinja Chief Magistrates Court with murder and he was remanded. He was later granted bail on November 24, 2016.

The case was later moved to Mukono on the instructions of then Principal Judge Yorokamu Bamwine after the State complained that the crime had been committed in the Mukono jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, until now the murder trial has never taken off.

Mr Musoke pulls out a letter dated July 2, 2019 from Mukono Resident Judge Margaret Mutonyi replying the Principle Judge that court does not have money to commence the trial.

Mr Musoke is concerned that he might never get justice for the death of his daughter.

“Justice delayed is Justice denied. The case has taken unnecessarily long. Some of the witnesses were Makerere University students. It might be difficult to trace them,” he says. Most witnesses have since graduated.

“There is nothing I can do about it but at least it should come to a conclusion,” he says.

We could not get a comment from Judiciary spokesperson Solomon Muyita, despite several attempts.

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