How court stole six years of Taremwa’s life

On the night of November 12, 2018, a fire gutted a Senior Three dormitory at St Bernard’s Secondary School Manya, in Rakai District, in a clear case of arson. To ensure that no one escaped the inferno, the perpetrators of this heinous act locked the door to the dormitory from the outside. Ten students died in the fire, while more than 30 others were injured.

The bodies of those who lost their lives were burnt beyond recognition and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests had to be carried out to identify them before their bodies were handed over to their relatives. Henry Taremwa Bangirana, a resident of Soya, Nagojje sub-county, in Mukono District, was one of the suspects arrested.

At the time, he was a 16-year-old Senior Four student at St Bernard’s Secondary School Manya. A week earlier, he had been expelled from the school. “One of the students had broken a glass door to the dormitory and the school administration decided to expel all the ‘stubborn’ students. Unfortunately, I was among them. At the time of our expulsion, we were doing our Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations,” he says.

The expelled students still had a few more exam papers to sit and were allowed to complete their exams while commuting from outside the school every morning. Taremwa, the last born of eight children, could not commute from his parent’s home in Lyantonde district.

“I had a friend who owned rentals in the trading centre. With another student, Alex Mugarura, who had also been expelled, I rented a room from my friend at Shs30,000. The agreement was that after the exams, we would vacate the room. We had been living in the trading centre for a week when the dormitory was set on fire,” he says.

According to Taremwa, a few months earlier, leaflets had been dropped on the school’s basketball court, informing students that several heads were needed for human sacrifice. Then, a few weeks later, someone tried to burn the school. In both cases, the former student says the school administration did not invest in adequate security measures to protect the students. The administration only informed the students to be vigilant and walk in groups.

“The administration knew where all the expelled students lived in the trading centre, so the morning after the dormitory was burnt, the police arrested us. Mugarura and I were arrested at the chapati stall of Edison Niyo where we had gone to buy kikomando (chapati and beans) for breakfast. They accused us of burning the school,” Taremwa says.

He adds that at the police station, the trio found all the other students who had been expelled had also been arrested. However, most were released and the police only retained four suspects.

Accused of murder

The boys were accused of refusing to go to their homes because they had an evil intent to destroy the school, despite their explanations that they had remained behind to complete their examinations.

“By the time I was arrested, I had five more exam papers to write. I did them while in police custody. Every morning, I would leave the police cells under heavy escort to go to school. There was no evidence to prove that we were guilty,” Taremwa says.

After they completed their exams, the suspects were transferred to Masaka Central Police Station. The former student says the police kept asking them how old they were.

“I was 16, Alex was 17, Dickson Kisuule was 17, while the owner of the chapati stall was slightly older, at 21 years. On the case file, the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) officers indicated that the three of us were above 18. When we tried to object, they said we were lying,” he recalls.

Taremwa alleges that he was tortured while in custody at Masaka Central Police Station. He says the officers promised him that if he confessed to the crime he would be set free.

“I refused to confess because I did not burn that dormitory. I was taken to another detention facility and savagely beaten. I have scars on my back to prove it. One time they beat me until I lost my mind for a while,” he says.

After their first appearance in court, the suspects were remanded to Masaka Main Prison. They were remanded for six months. The next time they appeared in court, the State Attorney read out their committal papers which indicated the transfer of their case from the Magistrate’s Court to the High Court.

“We were underage in an adult prison. I was only 16 but up to now, I am still traumatised by the things I witnessed. I was assigned to a cell that had only murderers. A room built to accommodate only 10 prisoners, had about 100 people sleeping in it,” he explains.

After their case was brought up for mention in the Masaka High Court, the suspects were returned to the prison, where they spent six years on remand, without being called to trial.

“We applied for bail on three occasions but were denied each time. The bail process is costly and my parents had to sell off their property to facilitate the lawyers. On each occasion, the State Attorney kept saying we should wait for a special court session,” Taremwa says.

On trial at last

In July 2024, Masaka High Court judge, Justice Victoria Nakintu Katamba, began hearing the case. Immediately, the suspects’ lawyer, Sam Ssekyewa, lodged a Miscellaneous Application indicating that they had been arrested in contravention of the law, locked up in an adult prison, there were no witnesses to the case, and that the suspects had been on remand for six years.

“I requested the court to free them unconditionally because several human rights violations had taken place. First, they had been held in custody at the police station for two weeks without being taken to court, which is illegal and contrary to the 48-hour rule,” Ssekyewa says.

However, the main contention was the age of the former students. Taremwa says the main trial was put on hold until the Miscellaneous Application was disposed of.

“Our relatives brought our birth certificates and baptism cards. However, the State Attorney, Noah Kunya, contested them, saying they were forgeries. He asked for confirmation from the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) because the results slips these days have dates of birth. When Uneb furnished the court with our results slips, Kunya did not present mine,” Taremwa says.

Ssekyewa applied again for Uneb to furnish the court with Taremwa’s results slip, indicating that the State Attorney had refused to file it yet it was key in helping the court to know the age of the accused person.

“We believe the sole intention of not attaching the results slip of Taremwa is to suppress evidence so that the truth will never be known by this court since the said pass slip would reveal the actual age of the applicant,” Ssekyewa informed the court at the time.

With so much pressure applied, the State Attorney finally presented Taremwa’s results slip, which indicated that he was still a minor at the time of arrest and remand. On that ground, Ssekyewa pleaded with the court to release him. In a ruling delivered to the suspects’ lawyer via email, on October 7, 2024, Justice Nakintu ordered, “The 1st Applicant who was a juvenile at the time of his detention, having spent more than five years in an adult prison, which duration exceeds the maximum sentence a juvenile may serve; it is directed the proceedings against him are a nullity and discontinued under Section 17 of the Judicature Act and S11(2) of the Human Rights Enforcement Act, 2019. To avoid further abuse of his constitutional rights he should be released immediately.”

However, Justice Nakintu agreed with the prosecution that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th applicants’ claims that they were not afforded their rights to be arraigned in court within 48 hours were not substantiated. She said that no evidence was adduced to prove the claims, rejecting the prayers to be acquitted based on this claim.

She also ruled that Mugarura and Kisuule were not juveniles at the time of their arrest in November 2018, saying that their trial and that of Niyo should continue. In the amended charge sheet, the accused are facing 48 counts – 10 counts of murder, 36 counts of attempted murder, one count of arson, and one count of attempted arson.

The legal view

Counsel Asuman Matovu, the head of litigation at Musangala Advocates and Solicitors, expresses concern over delayed justice, calling on the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to take this as a wake-up call.

“It is unfortunate that someone can spend six years on remand. These are some of the reports we have been hearing. There was a report from Members of Parliament about certain suspects who have been on remand for 28 years.

Justice delayed is justice denied. The ODPP should ensure that thorough investigations are conducted before someone is arrested and arraigned before court,” he advises.

Matovu highlights the stipulations in the Penal Code Act about criminal liability of minors.

“The criminal liability of a minor starts at 12 years. If someone is below 12 years, then you cannot charge that person because he is criminally not liable according to our laws. Article 34 (4 and 6) of the Constitution prohibits putting a minor into the same custody as an adult. There are certain procedures that the court has to follow once it identifies that the suspect is a minor,” he says.

Minors have special remand homes such as the Naguru Remand Home, as determined by the court or the minister of justice and constitutional affairs. In any case, such a minor cannot be on remand for more than three months if it is a capital offence that attracts a death sentence.

“That means, within three months, investigations have to be carried out and if a minor is found guilty, the punishment must be given accordingly. It is an infringement of the minor’s rights if he or she remains on remand for more than three months,” Matovu says.

Picking up the pieces

When Taremwa was released, he travelled to his home in Lyantonde District. He says his parents were happy to receive him and welcomed him with a party to which they invited the entire village.

“Some of them came to see what I looked like and now, they are the ones stigmatising me. Some of them point at me and call me a murderer. When I visited one of my uncles and requested him to help me with capital to start up a business, he rejected me, saying he could not help prisoners. That traumatised me,” he says.

Due to the stigma, Taremwa was forced to take up his sister’s offer to come and live with her in Mukono District. Nowadays, he avoids the company of many people.

“I am always inside the house. When I walk out, I do not talk to anyone. There should be a law against people who insist you committed a crime even when the courts have set you free. There should be equity between the rich and the poor. I do not think a rich man’s son would have spent six years on remand without trial,” he says.

Taremwa scored 33 aggregates in the UCE examinations, which is a second grade. Before his arrest, his dream was to become a journalist but not anymore. Now, he wants to pursue a career in the Law to be able to represent people who are wrongly accused of crimes they did not commit. However, he still faces several hurdles.

“My parents do not have the money to further my education. They spent all their savings to get me out of prison. Unfortunately, because of the stress of my imprisonment, both of them developed chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure. They had a lot of hope in me. But all is in vain now,” he says.

Taremwa does not have his Uneb results slip because he is afraid of what will happen to him should he return to his former school to collect it. However, even if he had a results slip, he studied under the old curriculum and says it will be difficult for him to join A-Level.

“I would be glad if anyone facilitates me to join a technical institution. I am a mess now. I want to go back to school but there is no money. For all the six years I was in prison, my parents visited me every week, but I feel like they have lost hope in me,” he says.

Way forward

According to legal experts, once an individual claims to be a minor, the court must conduct thorough investigations to verify their age. If these rights are violated, the minor has the right to take legal action against the Attorney General for compensation for the infringement of his or her rights.

However, Ssekyewa says they do not plan to pursue this path. Instead, they hope to focus on integrating him back into society to end the stigma he is enduring. Taremwa’s sister, Scovia Bangirana, says her brother needs counselling to forget the trauma he has been through. Sometimes, he stares into space for hours, not talking to anyone.