Trial of man remanded for 22 years to start in two weeks

Kampala High Court Judge Musa Ssekaana yesterday gave government an ultimatum of two weeks to suspend all other business and ensure that officials involved in handling a 22-year-old criminal case that has never been heard is resurrected.
Alex Twinomugisha was arrested on October 19, 1999 on allegations of murdering three Makerere University students.

Twinomugisha is seeking court’s intervention to compel the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to use her powers under Article 120 (3) a & b of the Constitution to discontinue the said proceedings for non-existent of the file in all the offences and also for failure for the last 22 years to commit his file to the High Court to stand trial.
Yesterday when the matter resumed, the presiding judge said: “Suspend all other things and ensure that we establish what the problem was.”
Justice Ssekaana then directed government to file its reply in two weeks before cautioning the State to give the matter urgent attention.

This was after the State Attorney, Mr Abilu Hillary, had informed court that they were seeking an adjournment because they were not ready.
Twinomugisha is accused of shooting and killing on the spot Maria Mirindi Birungi Katasi, then a third-year Social Science student, her cousin, Cpl Mirindi Amooti Kajabagu and Richard Tumwesigye, both law students in fourth and third year, respectively as they returned from a law dinner.

Sources say Twinomugisha suspected that one of the students was a key witness in the Tororo Prince, Happy Kijanangoma and, Stephen Kaganda, a guard’s, trial.
He was jointly charged with former Tooro Kingdom prime minister John Sanyu Katuramu and his nephew, Patrick Kwezi, who was accused of transmitting cash to the killers.

In 2000, Twinomugisha, a former UPDF child soldier, battled two murder case files concurrently.
The file where he was jointly charged with Katuramu was fast tracked and the trio was found guilty of the murder of Kijanangoma in 2001 by then High Court judge John Bosco Katutsi.
All the three were sentenced to death by hanging.
However, they got a lease of their life when they benefited from the Susan Kigula Supreme Court landmark judgment that saw their death sentence commuted to 20 years imprisonment after court ruled that death sentence was no longer mandatory.

Late last year, Katuramu was released from prison after serving the 20 years in prison but Twinomugisha was further detained on grounds that he had a pending file in which he is accused of killing three Makerere University students, 22 years ago.
It is this same case file he is challenging for taking long to be disposed of.