According to the cause list issued by Justice Wilson J. Kwesiga the head of Criminal Division, Justice Mugenyi will handle forty cases in the next forty days at Luweero high court. The cause list includes 16 aggravated defilement cases and 15 murder cases. Other cases include four rape cases, three aggravated robbery cases, one kidnap and one indecent assault case.
Aggravated defilement and murder cases top the list
of cases to be tried at the High Court session in Luweero.
A special High Court session at Luweero presided over by Justine Anna Mugenyi
Bitature commenced on Monday 16th March to handle case backlog from Nakaseke,
Nakasongola and Luweero districts.
According to the cause list issued by Justice Wilson J. Kwesiga the head of
Criminal Division, Justice Mugenyi will handle forty cases in the next forty
days at Luweero high court.
The cause list includes 16 aggravated defilement cases and 15 murder cases.
Other cases include four rape cases, three aggravated robbery cases, one kidnap
and one indecent assault case.
The cases involve 53 suspects who have been on remand from 2015-2018 at
Nakasongola prison.
Speaking during the Pre-trial session on Monday, Bitature tasked
the Prosecutor to ensure witness and suspects are courts in time to enable her to
conclude the cases within a set time.
Commenting on high cases of defilement and murder, the Luweero Chief Magistrate
Samuel Munobe blamed the cases on the decline in morals in the society.
He also blamed the murders on rampant land conflicts in the area and ignorance
of laws by the residents.
Munobe, however, advised the suspects to embrace plea bargain arrangement so
that they can be given lenient sentences.
Plea bargaining is a negotiated agreement between the prosecution and an
accused person represented by a lawyer. Once a deal is struck, the accused
person is brought before a judge to plead guilty to the charges against him or
her in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Defilement is a leading crime in Luweero. In Last criminal session presided
over by Justice Vincent Okwanga 20 out of 40 cases were of aggravated
defilement.
The 2018 Annual Crime Police report also showed that 192 defilement cases were
reported in Luweero district. It was ranked in the 11th position among
the districts with the highest defilement rates in the country and eighth with
the highest cases of homicides after recording 68 cases within the year.
Children in the district say their lives are in danger because of the
increasing cases of sexual abuse directed at them. Some of the victims have
suffered urinary tract infections, urinary incontinence and trauma among other
complications as a result of defilement.
