Molly Katanga is accused of causing the death of her husband, Henry Katanga, by shooting him with a pistol on the night of November 2, 2023.

Her two daughters, Patricia Kankwanzi and Martha Nkwanzi, have been charged with conspiracy to destroy evidence that could have been used in the judicial trial. The house help, George Amanyire, and the family nurse, Charles Otai, are charged with being accessories after the fact of murder.

All the accused persons denied the charges against them during a court hearing presided over by Justice John Muwata on July 2. The highly publicized murder trial finally commenced after roughly seven months of legal proceedings, which included the denial of two bail hearings for the accused, a protracted search for the complete disclosure of trial documents, and explosive allegations from Martha Nkwanzi.

On behalf of the defendants, Nkwanzi accused the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of deliberately withholding vital pretrial evidence. Additionally, the judge decided to lock the media out of the pre-trial hearings. Molly Katanga, currently held in the high-security women’s prison in Luzira, appeared via Zoom before the High court to hear her trial.

She was seen wearing a surgical mask, a white headscarf, and a dera, looking somewhat distraught on the big screen behind the judge. The two daughters, the house help, and the family nurse were seated in the third row with masks covering their faces. A Rutooro language translator, Joyce Amono, was assigned for Amanyire, following his request to be tried in a language he best understands.

The prosecution team, seeking justice for the late Henry Katanga, comprises Samali Wakooli, assistant director of public prosecutions, and chief state attorneys Jonathan Muwaganya and Anna Kiiza. They bear the burden of proof and must demonstrate the guilt of the accused.

The defense team is represented by prominent legal figures including Macdusman Kabega, Bruce Musinguzi, Elison Karuhanga, Peter Kabatsi, and John Jet Tumwebaze. Their task is to prove the innocence of Molly Katanga and the four others. On Tuesday, July 9, the case was presented before Justice Isaac Muwata.

The courtroom was filled to capacity, with some attendees standing due to lack of seating. The court began cross-examining the witnesses presented by the prosecution at 10:20am. The first witness, Dr Julius Muhwezi, 44, is a police medical doctor who offers services to suspects in detention and police officers stationed at the Directorate of Police Health Services in Nsambya. He examined the two suspects, George Amanyire and Charles Otai, upon their detention.

DETAILED REPORT

When asked by the prosecution to describe his process for handling suspects, Dr Muhwezi provided a detailed report. Although he appeared nervous, he remained firm in his statements. He explained that, according to protocol, he examines suspects using Police Form 24, where he records the details of his examinations, including the date, and then stamps and signs the form.

He testified that he examined the two suspects on November 12 and found no external injuries, noting that they appeared to be in normal mental condition. The defense, during its cross-examination, asked the witness how he identifies the police forms of the suspects’ medical examinations presented before him.

The witness responded, “It is my handwriting, stamp, and signature,” and confirmed that both forms were handled by him. The defense then introduced a document showing a superficial examination of Amanyire conducted six days before the main medical examination by the witness. The exhibit presented to the judge indicated that the suspect was arrested on November 2.

Defense lawyer Bruce Musinguzi asked the witness to confirm that the suspect was arrested on November 2 but was in Jinja on November 12, implying illegal detention. He asked, “As a trained police officer, you know that it is illegal to detain a person for more than 24 hours without being charged. Do you examine people who have been detained in this manner?”

Further examination of the witness confirmed that he is not aware of when the suspects he examines are arrested. He stated that he is only responsible for the medical section of the examination and the forms presented.

The defense then asked the witness how many stamps the form holds. He replied with the number and was then asked to confirm that he stamped the form twice, on November 12 and 13, and that both stamps were made by him. The witness, looking perplexed, examined the form critically before answering, “Yes, I confirm that I signed on the 12th, but it appears adulterated.”

The defense asked the witness to confirm the form’s adulteration, to which he responded, “Because, my lord, what should have been the 12th reads 13th.”

He confirmed that the stamp on the 12th belongs to him, but the one on the 13th was not stamped by him. He reiterated that he examined the suspects as required of him.

ON RETURN

The court took a one-hour break at 12:43 after cross-examining Muhwezi for about three hours. The second witness, Samuel Osede, 56, an assistant inspector of police in the Jinja Road Police division and currently in charge of Bugolobi community policing, has been in the police force for 31 years.

The prosecution asked Osede to identify the accused persons, among whom he recognized Patricia Kakwanzi, who had introduced him to her sister Martha, the shamba boy, and the family nurse on the day of the incident. The prosecution then asked Osede to recount the events of November 2, as he was the first responder to the crime scene.

He stated that on November 2, 2023, around 8 o’clock, he was at his home in Mukono when he received a call from Patricia, who said, “In our home, someone has committed suicide by shooting himself.”

He then made his way to Mbuya, the home of the late Henry Katanga. Upon his arrival, he was ushered in by a man who he later identified as the family chef. The chef led him through the lower sitting room up a flight of stairs to the upper sitting room, which is next to the main bedroom, where he found Patricia and Otai.

“I moved with the doctor [Otai] to the room where the deceased was,” Osede stated. The prosecution then asked, “Where was Patricia’s mother?” He answered that he did not see her. He asked who the deceased was, and Patricia said it was her father. He then asked where her mother was, and she replied, “The incident took place when mummy was not around.”

He noticed someone in the room mopping. “I didn’t inquire a lot since the mother was not around; so, I told them to stop what they were doing, and I took over the room. There was a lot of blood in the room, and Amanyire was cleaning the blood.”

There was a pistol on the bed with a live bullet beside it. The body was placed on a small three-inch mattress. There was a lot of blood on the main bed and the mosquito net. The body looked clean, with gauze tied around the legs, and there was no blood seeping from it.

He then called his superior, Peter Ogwang, who informed him that he had already been made aware of the incident by Doctor Otai and was on his way. As it approached 10am, the OC of Bugolobi police station, Peter Ogwang, arrived, to whom Osede handed over the scene. Shortly after, a team from the Jinja Road police division arrived and took over the investigation.

The defense then took the floor, accusing the police officer of lying by stating that Patricia had not told him it was her father who had died, despite this being recorded in the officer’s statement of events that day. The officer remained silent, though visibly angry. The defense then asked the witness if he was aware of the proper procedure for a first responder to a crime scene in the Uganda Police.

He replied that he was aware of it but had not received the training. The defense then proceeded to question the methods and protocols he used to assess the situation as untrained personnel. He explained that after receiving the call from Patricia, he decided to first reach the scene to ascertain the situation on the ground before reporting to his superior.

Upon his arrival, he assessed the situation, restricted access to the crime scene by closing off the room and called his superior while guarding the room and awaiting his superior’s arrival. He confirmed to the prosecution that he might not have recorded everything he saw that day in his statement.

The court was then adjourned to Wednesday for the examination of the next witnesses. On Wednesday July 10, as court proceedings began and the accused stood in the dock, the defense asked the judge to allow one of the accused to take a seat as she had recently given birth. Small murmurs of disapproval, displeasure, and sarcastic giggles filled the court, and the judge replied that she would sit after roll call.

He then proceeded to describe the grotesque scene he found in the bedroom, similar to the previous witness. Upon his arrival at the scene, he said Madam Patricia asked him to report the incident as an accident. He responded that he could not report it as an accident and that a senior police officer (SP) needed to cover the scene. He immediately called Detective Akong Bibiana, who arrived with a homicide team.

He did not see Martha upon his initial arrival at the scene but noted that he saw her about an hour later. The defense then asked Ogwang to confirm that Patricia had asked him to report the matter as an accident. He confirmed this, but the defense argued that the officer had not spoken to Patricia and requested to see the statement he made.

When the statement was shown, it contained no record of Patricia asking to report the incident as an accident or the officer seeing Martha. The defense argued that the officer was lying, as his statements did not align with what he had told the court. The prosecution then asked the witness if he had recorded everything he observed that day. He admitted he had not, explaining, “I might have forgotten, but everything I said is true.”

This concluded his cross-examination. As the court session ended, murmurs were heard, suggesting that “Uganda police is lazy, and now defense lawyers are going to take advantage of it. But where was the mother when all this was happening? No one is asking.”

After a short break, the last witness for the day was called to the stand: Timothy Nyangweso, 40, an accountant and assets manager at Watoto, and a cousin to two of the accused. He is also the son of the sister of the late Katanga. He identified the accused as Tricia, Martha and Amanyire, the house help. He was asked to recount the events of November 2.

He stated that he was at his mother’s house that morning but had to leave and return to his home. His mother called him at 8am, asking him to call his uncle because she had tried reaching him but had failed. He called both of his uncle’s numbers, but there was no answer.

He then proceeded to call Martha, who made the line busy the first two times but picked up on the third attempt around 8:30am or 9am. She informed him that her dad was sleeping and that he should call back later. With teary red eyes and a shaky voice, he told the court, “At 9:30am, mum called me and said Uncle Henry was dead.”

The defense argued that Timothy made his statement two months after the incident and suggested that his statement was an attempt to fill in gaps. Timothy made the statement on January 8 after a court proceeding in Nakawa related to this case, where Martha was remanded.

The defense contended that it was only when he saw Martha that he recalled the phone conversation and decided to make a statement at Jinja Road police station. Timothy, unscathed by the defense’s argument, stated that he had not voluntarily gone to the police to make a statement but had been summoned through a phone call.

The defense proceeded to state that Timothy did not make any phone calls to Martha, presenting a statement he made in which he recorded Martha’s number and his uncle’s number. The defense asked the witness to read his personal number to confirm with the forensic report from his uncle’s phone that there was a call from him.

Timothy refused to read his number aloud to the public and instead wrote it down for the judge to confirm. It was confirmed that he indeed called his uncle that day. The defense then asked Timothy to dial the number he had written down as Martha’s in his statement. When he rang the number, it was unavailable.

Timothy then clarified that the number listed in the statement, 0788149415, was incorrect and that the correct number in his phone was 0788148415. The defense argued that according to Martha, there was no conversation between the two on November 2 and that Timothy’s claim was a fabrication.

They stated that during the police investigation, all the phones of the involved persons were taken, and a forensic analysis was conducted. The defense presented a list of the numbers that called Martha’s line, or rather her call logs from MTN, and asked the witness to show where his number appeared on the call log.

The prosecution objected to this request, arguing that the method of cross-examination used by the defense was prohibited. They cited Section 147 of the Evidence Act, stating, “Our learned friend cannot bring evidence and ask the witness to verify it.”

The defense argued that the same section of the Evidence Act allows testing veracity and character, which is what they were doing—trying to prove that the witness was lying under oath. The judge permitted the defense’s request, and the witness could not locate his number in the call log.

Timothy then stated he had no way of verifying if the document was authentic, but he stood by his word that he called Martha and had that conversation. Pierre Kajura, 27, an IT technician at Nkrumah road opposite the police post, testified that he knew Henry Katanga as a jolly man whom he sometimes referred to as an uncle, although they were not related by blood.

However, he denied knowing either Molly Katanga or the other four accused persons. Kajura told the court that he met the late Katanga in 2017 and had a business relationship with him, handling transactions and other tasks. “I would deposit money for him, and he was our good client. I helped him with technical issues like connecting his laptop to the printer,” he said.

When asked whether he interacted with the late Katanga prior to his death, Kajura mentioned that Katanga had told him someone was trying to hack and track his phone and sought advice on installing passwords, including phone and email passwords. “I told him that he could use passwords as it was the only way in IT, and this included changing the phone and email password,” he said.

Kajura further told the court that Katanga inquired whether placing his phone on the bed could make it susceptible to tracking or hacking, indicating his insecurity at his marital home in Mbuya.

“Katanga asked me if putting his phone on the bed would allow someone to track or hack it, and I asked him whether he had kids at home. He replied that they were all grown-ups,” he said.

However, on November 1, 2023, the day before he died, Katanga asked for the passwords to be removed because he found it very difficult to access his phone and no longer wanted them.

MONDAY, JULY 15

On Monday, Ronald Mugabe Ruranga, a 45-year-old lawyer, businessman, and farmer, was the only witness cross-examined. He has been practising law with Agaba and Company Advocates for over 17 years and served as a legal advisor to the late Katanga.

During the cross-examination, the witness told the court that he had received documents pertaining to the making of a will from Henry Katanga. The envelope contained original documents of ownership and land titles. He mentioned that he was closely related to the late Katanga as a family friend, often invited to family functions.

The defense presented a document from the Chief Registrar claiming that Ronald Mugabe Ruranga is not an enrolled advocate. They argued that if he is practising, it is illegal as there are no records of him as an advocate.

The defense also presented a folder of documents showing business transactions by the late Katanga, highlighting the absence of the witness’s participation in these documents as proof that he was not as acquainted with the deceased as he claimed.

In response, the witness explained that his practising certificate is under the name Ronald Mugabe and that he has documents in his office that can demonstrate his work with the late Katanga. This concluded the cross-examination.

The court then adjourned to the next hearing, scheduled for August 20, when Naome Nyangweso, sister to the deceased, will be the witness. The court will be on leave until then.