President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has pardoned former Pine Car Bond Managing Director Muhammad Ssebuwufu, the businessman convicted in 2019 for the kidnap, aggravated robbery and murder of his client Betty Donah Katusabe.
Ssebuwufu has been release from prison on following the presidential pardon granted under Article 121 (4) (a) of the 1995 Constitution on the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy.
Confirming the development, the Uganda Prisons Service said it had implemented the directive upon receipt of the instrument of pardon.
“The President of the Republic of Uganda, H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, in accordance with Article 121 (4) (a) of the 1995 Constitution and on the advice of the Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy, has exercised his constitutional powers to grant pardon to Convicted Prisoner No. 489, Hajji Muhammad Ssebuwufu,” said Senior Commissioner of Prisons Frank Baine Mayanja in a statement.
“On receipt of the instrument, the beneficiary has been released from prison,” he added.
Ssebuwufu’s conviction arose from one of Kampala’s most closely followed criminal trials. Court heard that in 2015, businesswoman Betty Donah Katusabe had approached Pine Car Bond, a vehicle financing company in downtown Kampala, seeking a loan of Shs10 million. The prosecution successfully argued that after she failed to clear the debt, she was kidnapped from her workplace, violently assaulted and later died from injuries sustained during the ordeal.
In 2019, the High Court found Ssebuwufu and his co-accused guilty of kidnap, aggravated robbery and murder. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
However, in 2025, a panel of three justices of the Court of Appeal of Uganda re-evaluated the sentence and reduced it to 18 years, ruling that although the conviction stood, the initial punishment imposed by the lower court was excessively harsh in the circumstances of the case.
By the time of his release, Ssebuwufu had spent 11 years in incarceration at Luzira Prison.
Pine Car Bond, which operated as a vehicle financing and lending business, had faced intense criticism during the trial, with the case highlighting concerns about the use of force in debt recovery.
Under Uganda’s constitutional framework, a presidential pardon does not overturn a conviction but extinguishes the remainder of the sentence.
