Widow awarded Shs60m after husband’s murder

Fifty two-year-old Phyllis Chepkwemoi will never forget what befell her husband on November 4, 2004.

She vividly recalls how 17 soldiers of the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) attached to Senendet army detach walked to her home in Kapsiywo Village, Chepkwasta Sub-county, Bukwo District in eastern Uganda, and asked her husband, Gilbert Cherotwo, to hand over a gun.

When Cherotwo informed the soldiers that he had no gun with him, they refused to believe him and instead started beating him mercilessly.

The chaos attracted the attention of neighbours, who slowly gathered at Cherotwo’s compound, one after another. The soldiers reportedly dispersed the crowd after it had grown big. Cherotwo’s wife, who was pregnant at the time, opted to seek help from local leaders, including the village chairperson, parish chairperson and sub-county chairperson, but none of them was able to convince the men in uniform to stop assaulting Cherotwo. Their pleas refuting claims that their own had a gun fell on deaf ears.

Journey of no return

After hours of assaulting Cherotwo without finding the firearm they were looking for, the soldiers reportedly took him to the barracks, leaving his wife, children and neighbours shocked and wondering what would befall their neighbour next.

“They beat him up until 4pm and took him away. They also told me to prepare a coffin. We were later informed that he had been taken to Bukwo hospital after he fell unconscious. My children and I did not sleep at home that night because we were afraid the soldiers would return in the night and subject us to the same kind of brutality they had unleashed to my husband,” Chepkwemoi recalls.

At 5am the following morning, Chepkwemoi and her mother-in-law decided to walk to Bukwo hospital, where Cherotwo had been taken and find out how he was doing. After walking for about two hours, they reached the hospital, only to be informed that Cherotwo had died shortly after he was taken to the facility. He was in his early forties.

“We decided to go and record a statement on the murder of my husband at Bukwo Central Police Station. My husband’s body was then taken to Kapchorwa hospital for a post-mortem. He died just like that and left me with five children plus the one I was carrying in my womb,”Chepkwemoi says.

George Chepnoyen, who was then the village chairperson of Kapsiywo where Chepkwemoi and her husband lived, says he witnessed the victim die in hospital.

“He was restless. He would ask to be put down on the floor, then back to the bed. He died early in the morning on November 5, 2004,”he said.

And just like that, Chepkwemoi’s life turned around completely. She had all of a sudden became a widow in her early thirties and had to bear the huge re sponsibility of taking care of her six children.

A post-mortem report prepared by Dr William Manyi, who carried it out on the request of the police,revealed that Cherotwo’s body had external injuries that were multiple linear abrasions throughout the upper trunk and upper arms. The internal injuries were contused left kidney, cephalohaematoma, and brain oedema.

The report further suggested that Cherotwo’s body was well nourished and that his death was caused by “torture with brain contusion and a ruptured kidney”, most likely caused by the injuries he sustained from the beatings.

Cherotwo’s wife would later file a complaint at the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Soroti regional office. That complaint was registered as NO.SRT/229/2006, with Chepkwemoi as the complainant and the Attorney General as the respondent.

In a letter dated January 20, 2006 to the regional head of Uganda Human Rights office in Soroti, the Kapchorwa District Police Commander acknowledged that the UPDF soldiers and Anti-Stock Theft Unit tortured Gilbert Cherotwo to death.

“An investigation into the murder was conducted. On November 5, 2004, two suspects; NO RA 137053 Pte George Emarund Pte Alfred Asinge were arrested by the army and police. The two suspects were handed over to Lt Francis Kibuka of the Special Investigations Bureau, 3rd Division Headquarters in Mbale for trial in the court martial,”the letter reads. The army would later claim the arrested soldiers were prosecuted in the court martial for the murder of Gilbert Cherotwo . Private Emaru reportedly died of HIV/Aids-related complications in 2007 while out on bail. The whereabouts of Pte Asinge remain unknown After nearly 20 years, the UHRC de- livered its decision on the matter. The UHRC tribunal that sat in Soroti on

February 26 this year, found UPDF guilty of the murder offence. The tribunal was comprised of its chairperson Mariam Wangadya and three commissioners,among them Col (rtd) Stephen Basaliza, Lamex Omara Apitta and Crispin Kaheru.

The tribunal noted that “the actions of UPDF soldiers were intentional, deliberate, sadistic, cruel, oppressive, barbaric, arbitrary, dehumanising, arrogant, wanton, criminal and impossible to justify.”

“We want to remind the UPDF of their obligation to respect human rights and freedoms in the performance of their duties,” the Commission ruled.

The UHRC ordered government to pay Shs60m as general damages for violation of Cherotwo’s right to life. This amount will carry interest at 10 percent per annum from the date the order was made until payment in full. Whereas Chepkwemoi welcomes the decision, she is afraidthe government may delay to pay her the awarded money.

“I have suffered all this while. My children have faced a lot of challenges and are not well educated. My first born daughter dropped out of school in Primary Seven, although she passed her Primary Leaving Examinations. I could no longer afford to pay her school fees. The other five children stopped at Senior Four and are just at home. I can’t keep them in school any further,”she says. Her eldest daughter is now 32 years old, while the last born is 19.

She believes the Shs60m reward could come in handy if granted, anyway. Ms Pauline Nansamba Mutumba, the UHRC’s director in-charge of Complaints, Investigations and Legal Services, told this newspaper that the Attorney General is responsible for the payment given that this is an old case. The complainant is expected to individually follow up the matter with the Attorney General’s chambers where the payment process is managed.

She added UHRC provides administrative support given that most of the beneficiaries are indigent and vulnerable. For Chepkwemoi’s case, the Commission is willing to offer legal support in a bid to hasten the payment process, but that is not a guarantee that the victim will receive the money any time soon.

The Commission has lawyers at the regional offices across the country and their mandate is partly to support the complainants with all the relevant information.

“We would like to call upon the state to ensure these compensation awards are handled expeditiously, challenges notwithstanding because many of our complainants are elderly and not able to even follow up the compensation awards. The State should consider some sort of affirmative action for awards by the human rights tribunal to ensure payments are made as quickly as possible,”Ms Mutumba said.

In the meantime, Chepkwemoi and her six children are clinging on hope that the money is processed quickly and it helps them.

However, even when the money is finally paid, the pain of losing a husband and father at the hands of the very people who are supposed to protect life, moreover on trumped up accusations, will never be taken away. It is the reality that Chepkwemoi and her children will live with forever.