By: Frank M. Gashumba
Info@frankgashumba.com
This is the Uganda we live in now! This situation is sad, a huge disgrace to our judicial system, and even bigger shame to our leaders!
You have failed Desire’s parents, the children of this nation, and generations to come!
This is now our reality! And to think that my children have to live through a system this broken, unfair and corrupt shakes me to the core!
Having killed 19-year-old Desire Mirembe nearly six years ago, Matthew Kirabo, whom court granted bail to complete his undergraduate course at Makerere University, is now requesting court to give him his passport, so he can travel abroad to do his Masters.
According to his LinkedIn account, Kirabo identifies himself as a doctor. So while he ended this young girl’s life, he on the other hand, has gone on with his life and is living like nothing ever happened!
At 10:30am on Tuesday 11th May 2021, Mukono High court is scheduled to hear an application where Kirabo seeks to waive the detention of his passport as part of the bail conditions.
I know that there are many suspects who are languishing in prisons across the country on petty cases, and yet a first-degree murder suspect was granted bail to finish his studies. The same murderer wants his passport back while a young girl’s body languishes in the grave.
I wish these judges knew the pain her parents, relatives, friends, O.Gs and O.Bs are going through.
Why has the murder trial of Kirabo failed to kick off? Is Kirabo above the law? Is he related to top guns in the judiciary? Why is the judiciary hearing applications for passports when questions of murder are yet to be answered? Who is protecting Kirabo from the long arm of the law?
It is simply unacceptable that the same courts that have tried high-profile murders like those of Matthew Kanyamunyu, Brian Bagyenda, the son of the ISO boss and Muhammad Ssebuwufu, the proprietor of Pine car depot, can fail to hear the cries of a father whose daughter was killed by having her throat slit.
How Kirabo killed Desire
Desire went missing from her residence at Makerere University on July 6, 2015.
When Desire Mirembe went missing, her boyfriend Mathew Kirabo was the first suspect. When police eventually arrested him, Kirabo confessed that he killed Desire because he ‘loved her so much and could not afford losing her to another person’.
He then led a team of detectives to a sugarcane plantation in Lugazi where he had dumped her body, after he had drugged her drink and slit her throat.
Desire’s father, Emmanuel Musoke, a long-time friend of mine and former chairperson of Kalungu district, told me that the Mukono Resident Judge Margaret Mutonyi explained that court did not have money to hear cases during the Coronavirus pandemic.
For a judiciary that has tried cases of murder that came long after Desire was murdered, the claim by Judge Mutonyi is very suspicious and distressing for those who seek justice for Mirembe.
In 2015, months after Desire was killed, Betty Donah Katusabe was murdered at Pine Car Depot. Her killers who included the proprietor of the depot, Muhammad Ssebuwufu have since been tried and convicted.
In the same year that Desire was murdered, John Ahimbisibwe bled to death, having suffered a cut in the neck during a confrontation with Ivan Kamyuka at Club Guvnor. Kamyuka has since been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail.
On New Year’s Eve in 2015, Gatare, a student of mechanical engineering at Columbia College in Canada, who was in the country for the holiday was killed in cold blood. Two men Ronald Mutebi, 34 and Geoffrey Lubwama alias Jeff have since been jailed for 30 years.
Court has heard and will soon conclude the murder trial of three people including Brian Bagyenda, a son to Internal Security Organisation boss Col Frank Kaka Bagyenda, who are accused of murdering 23-year old Enid Twijukye and later dumping her body at Namanve Forest Reserve in Wakiso district. This murder happened in 2017, two years after Kirabo killed Desire.
Perhaps one of the most high-profile cases that the judiciary has handled in recent year is the one of the murder of social worker Kenneth Akena by Matthew Kanyamunyu. The murder happened on November 12, 2016 and has since been concluded. Kanyamunyu was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail.
Call to action
It’s been six agonising years for Desire’s father, who raised her as a single parent, and has had to endure the pain of knowing the man who murdered his daughter in cold-blood is roaming the streets of Kampala a free man.
We request the Chief Justice and Principal Judge to pick interest in this case, HCCS (sic) NO. 0434/2015 UGANDA VS KIRABO MATHEW.
If not for anything, so it because you are also parents, and have pity on this poor father who only wants justice for his baby girl!
The Uganda Law Council, Women’s Rights organizations, friends, Obs and OGs of Desire, where are you all in this?
This is the moment that this deceased young woman needs you the most.
When such a case takes long without being heard, chances are high that principal witnesses become more difficult to trace and key exhibits may be mishandled, and eventually the prosecution ends up losing such a case.
For any assistance towards the conviction of this first degree murderer, contact Desire’s Father on 0705100061.
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