Serial killer Richard Arinaitwe survives life imprisonment
Serial killer Richard Arinaitwe at court of appeal yesterday. This was after his life imprisonment was quashed and replaced with 24 and 9 months imprisonment. Mr. Arinaitwe was sentenced over the murder of an American woman at Equatorial Hotel. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA
Jailed serial killer Richard Arinaitwe, has today survived life imprisonment after three Court of Appeal judges quashed the previous ruling.
Led by Elizabeth Musoke, the three justices ruled that a sentence of 30 years would be adequate.
Musoke added that the period of five years and three months, which Arinaitwe spent on remand while attending trial would be deducted from the sentence.
“The sentence of life imprisonment imposed by the learned resentencing judge is hereby set aside and is replaced with a sentence of 24 years and nine months, to be served from the date of conviction which was December 18, 2003,” the court ruled.
The other justices were Hellen Obura and Ezekiel Muhanguzi.
Court faulted the lower court for not considering all the mitigating factors that where raised by Arinaitwe and prosecution.
“The only factor that he did not take into account was the age of the appellant. We are of the opinion that the age of the accused person is always a material consideration that ought to be taken into account before a sentence is imposed,” the justices ruled.
In 2013, High Court Judge Vincent Kagaba sentenced Arinaitwe to death for murdering an American volunteer in 1998 in her room at Hotel Equatoria.
“Those who live by the sword die by the sword,” the judge reasoned thus finding him guilty of murder.
However, after the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the mandatory death penalty on murder and which stated that all inmates on death row who had spent more than three years without being executed should have their sentences mitigated before the High Court, Arinaitwe’s sentence was reduced to life in prison.
Through his lawyers, Arinaitwe had raised six grounds of his appeal saying that the trial judge erred in law when he allowed the hearing against him to proceed without legal representation.
In his appeal, Arinaitwe also stated that the evidence of one of the prosecution witnesses to prove his identification was wrong and that the discrepancies and inconsistencies in prosecution’s evidence were minor.
However in the ruling the justices stated that court cannot enforce the right onto an accused person who is not willing to have the assistance of counsel in prosecution of his or her case.
