How mysterious murder has kept brothers on remand for seven years

Plea bargains are agreements between the prosecution and the accused in which the latter is given the option of pleading guilty to an offense. The benefit is that the accused avoids going to trial and facing a harsher sentence. The practice, governed by the Judicature (Plea Bargain) Rules, 2016, is meant to streamline the criminal justice process and reduce case backlogs. However, some lawyers are accusing prosecutors of coercing people into accepting plea bargains despite their innocence. This, they say, is discouraging innocent people from exercising their right to trial, and instead, encouraging them to admit to crimes they did not commit. Phiona Alayo’s husband might be in this dilemma. In 2018, he was accused of murdering his nephew and hiding the body over a property wrangle in the family. The look of anguish and despair etched on Alayo’s face embodies the emotional weight she carries.

The resident of Mpererwe in Kawempe Division, Kampala City, has to fend for her six children from her meagre earnings as a hairdresser. As the sole breadwinner, she has to pay their school fees, buy scholastic materials, feed them, and treat them when they fall ill. Such is the burden that the younger children dropped out of school. However, life was not always this dire. The troubles began when her husband, Jimmy Nganda, was arrested and imprisoned in Masaka Main Prison in 2018. He has been on remand for seven years without trial. “My husband had built a house in Nsangi, but I used it as collateral to get a loan to hire lawyers. They applied for bail three times, in vain. I failed to pay back the loan, and the house had to be sold off,” she says.

Alayo hoped that if her husband got bail, he would work towards repaying the debt to save their home from the loan sharks. “My youngest child has never seen his father. He is incarcerated in Masaka, yet I live in Mpererwe. Sometimes I fail to get the transport fare to visit him. The little I make goes to feeding our children,” she adds. Alayo says that in the seven years of his incarceration, Nganda developed high blood pressure and diabetes. He is also a regular in hospitals due to frequent bouts of meningitis. “My husband has not attended a single trial.

The last time I visited, he told me prisoners were being forced to accept the crimes against them. My husband refused to accept a plea bargain for a crime he did not commit,” she laments. The mother of six claims that after entering plea bargains, prisoners are being handed long sentences. “My husband has been in prison for seven years. What if he accepts the plea bargain and is sentenced to 35 years? That means he would have to be in prison for another 28 years. Where does that leave me?” she asks.

The situation in Masaka

In coercive plea bargains, defendants with limited resources are especially targeted due to the high costs of trials. Sam Ssekyewa, an advocate in Masaka City, says forcing parties to mediate in civil matters and entering plea bargains in criminal cases is an issue that has been developed by the Judiciary over time. “The challenge with criminal cases is that most of the defendants have been in prison for a long time. It almost feels like they are already serving a sentence. So, he or she gets fed up and agrees to enter the plea bargain,” Ssekyewa explains. In this way, some innocent people, who may not have committed a crime, agree to it due to the prevailing circumstances.

“As advocates, we are demanding that a judge hear the matter and decide whether the defendant is entering the plea bargain at his or her own will. Unfortunately, nowadays, those who refuse to enter plea bargains are going ten years without trial,” the lawyer adds. Coercive plea bargains mean people are being convicted wrongly, yet justice is more about fairness than convictions. “You cannot compel someone to admit to a crime just because you want to clear the case backlog and secure convictions. It is a clear breach of the Constitution. You failed to try this person for many years, and now you are buttressing an injustice,” Ssekyewa says. In the case of Nganda, being locked up for seven years gave his accusers carte blanche to grab all his property.

Before he was arrested, he was a mechanic who owned a garage. He had several plots of land and houses. In every criminal session, a judge is supposed to handle 40 cases. However, Nganda has not attended a single session. Ssekyewa calls for a system that ensures transparency. “Those who were arrested in 2018 or earlier should be the first to be tried. Why start with people who have only been on remand for five years, yet the others are not even on the cause list?” he asks. 

The genesis of the problem

In December 2018, Alayo was seven months pregnant. On the fateful day, after her husband, Jimmy Nganda, left for his garage, she went to attend an antenatal clinic at Kawempe National Referral Hospital. “While at the hospital, I received a phone call from an unknown person asking for my husband. A little while later, a car parked outside the hospital. In it were two strange men, my brother and my brother-in-law, Charles Nalumoso. The two were prisoners,” Alayo recalls. Seeing her husband’s brother and her brother scared Alayo so much that her blood pressure rose. She says she thought she was also going to be arrested, even as she denied hiding her husband in the hospital. “The nurses helped me back into the hospital. I had gone for a routine medical checkup, but I ended up going into labour. I produced a premature baby.

The next day, I heard that my husband had been arrested. I spent a month in the hospital, receiving treatment,” she adds. Nganda and Nalumoso were taken to Masaka Main Prison immediately. For months, she did not know what crime they had committed. Then, she learned that they were accused of murdering their nephew and hiding his body. Ssekyewa blames the trial delays on the unfair distribution of judges. There were two judges for Masaka district, but one went away on study leave. The Judiciary Service Commission transferred the second judge and brought in a new one. “So, for one year, the cases that were before that judge have stalled. Other districts have two judges; Mukono district has four. Why should Masaka have only one judge? We have a backlog of 5,000 cases. That is a lot of work for one judge,” he says. 

On June 16, lawyers in the Masaka sub-region laid down their tools, demanding that the Judiciary immediately deploy at least five additional High Court judges and five registrars to the Masaka Court Circuit.  The Masaka Court Circuit covers nine districts (Masaka, Rakai, Kalangala, Sembabule, Kalungu, Bukomansimbi, Lwengo, Lyantonde, and Kyotera) and Masaka City. “We cannot continue working in this situation with one judge and one registrar. This state of affairs makes lawyers come off as incompetent. Some of our clients have died in prison, under our watch, because there is no judge to listen to their cases,” he explains. Ssekyewa adds that litigants are now taking matters into their own hands because they know that even if they go to court, there is no remedy. 

The way forward 

By Ugandan standards, Nganda - with his garage, houses, and plots of land - was a rich man. Today, his family is living a decrepit life. Nicholas Nganda was in Senior Three when his father was arrested. He dropped out of school that year. Today, he roasts chicken on the roadside to earn a living. “My uncles are fighting over their grandfather’s property. My father did not agree with the decisions of the heir. That is why he is in prison on trumped-up charges. There is no evidence that he killed his nephew, otherwise, he would have gone on trial,” Nganda says. The young man claims that his father’s brother, Lawrence Mulondo, who is their grandfather’s heir, sold off Nganda’s properties immediately after he was arrested. “He claims my father sold the properties to him, but we have never seen the money. My father could not have kept the money in his prison cell.

He would have informed us about the transactions,” Nganda adds. Faridah Mukasa, who is the mother of both prisoners, lives in Berlin, Germany. She agrees that the whole issue stems from an inheritance wrangle between her children over their grandfather’s property. “All of them, including Lawrence Mulondo, the heir, are my children. However, they have different fathers. Everyone thought that Nganda would be the heir. But somehow, through fraud, Lawrence became the heir,” she says. Mukasa claims that Mulondo, who also lives in Berlin, is the one keeping his brothers in prison. She says whenever Nganda’s name appears on the cause list, which details cases to be heard in court, Mulondo travels back home. Somehow, Nganda’s name disappears from the list. “Lawrence has done a lot of bad things.

Even when my daughter died, he grabbed all her property in Uganda. He has also grabbed some of my properties and tried to kill me several times,” Mukasa adds. Daily Monitor could not readily verify these claims or interview Mulondo. “I am aware that there is a boy who was brought to Berlin by Lawrence. I believe that boy is the one Nganda and Nalumoso are accused of murdering. No one has been able to find his body in Uganda because he lives and works in Berlin,” Mukasa insists. Meanwhile, Alayo calls on the Chief Justice and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to interest themselves in her husband’s case.  [email protected].