High Court Kampala is set to deliver its ruling on the double murder of the outspoken assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Muhammed Kirumira and his friend Mbabazi Nalinya.
Kirumira and Nalinya were gunned down on September 8, 2018 by unknown assailants travelling motorcycles. Kirumira was driving towards his home when gunmen waylaid him and opened fire at Bulenga trading centre.
Last year, the court started the trial of Hamza Mwebe and Abubakar Kalungi over their links to the killing of Kirumira and Nalinya. Justice Margrate Mutonyi acquitted Mwebe in December after the prosecution failed to avail evidence pinning him over the double murder. She ruled that Kalungi had a case to answer.
Last month court assessors advised the High Court to find the suspect Abubaker Kalungi innocent and acquit him of the crime.
The assessors told Justice Margaret Mutonyi that they are not convinced that Kalungi participated in the murder of Kirumira and another victim Resty Nalinnya Mbabazi in Bulenga Trading Center, Wakiso district.
They claimed that they are convinced that the prosecution proved that Kirumira’s death was unlawful and committed with malice aforethought and that none of the 15 Prosecution witnesses had placed Abubaker Kalungi at the scene of the crime.
Kalungi is said to have been hired by one Kateregga who is reportedly dead, to trail Kirumira’s movements. It shall also be remembered that on 23rd November last year, Justice Mutonyi dismissed a confession statement of one of the suspects Abubaker Kalungi saying that the State had failed to prove that it was voluntarily made as it was full of contradictions. Kalungi was acquitted but was rearrested soon after.
