Josephine Namatovu, the Assistant Director of Public Prosecution in charge of Anti-Corruption said that they were forced to drop charges against Basajjabalaba because most of their key witnesses have since passed away.
The Director
of Public Prosecutions-DPP has explained why charges against Kampala
businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba and his brother Muzamiru Basajjabalaba were
dropped two months ago.
In 2013,
Basajjabalaba and his brother Muzamiru were sued in the Anti-Corruption Court
after they had been accused of not paying taxes arising out of the 142 Billion Shillings
they had received from the government as compensation for the botched contract
taking over Kampala markets.
Josephine
Namatovu, the Assistant Director of Public Prosecution in charge of Anti-Corruption
said that they were forced to drop charges against Basajjabalaba because most
of their key witnesses have since passed away. However, Namatovu did not disclose the witnesses.
//Cue in: “the DPP at…
Cue out…percent
conviction rate,”//
Before the
case could be determined, Basajjabalaba ran to the Constitutional Court arguing
that their trial was illegal because the procedures and actions of the police
and the DPP and the laws under which they were being tried contradicted several
articles Constitution.
They lost
the battle in the Constitutional Court and they appealed to the Supreme Court
which also dismissed their claim as meritless and ordered the resumption of
their trial. But since November 19, 2021, when the Supreme Court cleared the way
for the resumption of the prosecution, the Anti-Corruption Court had not moved
an inch to reinstate the case.
This forced the Legal Brains Trust-LBT, a local not-for-profit organization
that had also sued Basajjabalaba for signing contracts to take over the markets
without the advice of the Attorney General, to write to the Chief Registrar
demanding that the case be fixed for hearing.
Legal Brains
Trust also filed an application seeking the High Court to force the DPP and the
Attorney General to resume the case. However, the court declined to register
the case instead writing to LBT informing them that they couldn’t resume the
case because the DPP had withdrawn the matter.
