Govt ordered to pay woman shs282m over her stolen vehicle sold to senior police officer

The High Court in Kampala has ordered the government to compensate a woman to a tune of shs282 million for the loss incurred when her stolen vehicle was later sold to a senior police officer.

Adrine Kemirembe’s Nissan Datsun registration number UAE 130H in November 2008 went missing from Makerere University's main library where it had been parked and on reporting to several police stations as well as alerting the Rapid Response Unit in Kireka for searches yielded nothing.

However, two years later in 2010, the vehicle was found parked in Kisenyi and on tracing its ownership, it was found out that it belonged to Anatoli Muleterwa, the then Kampala Metropolitan Police Liaison Officer who claimed it had been sold to him in an auction at Kampala Central Police Station.

Kemirembe later dragged the Attorney General and Muleterwa to court seeking compensation.

On Wednesday, Justice Lydia Mugambe ruled that in an interesting twist of events, the car mysteriously ended up at CPS and was later sold off to one Margret Kizza, the wife to Muleterwa at one million shillings.

The judge explained that despite the close relationship between Muleterwa and his wife, there was a conflict of interest that saw him assist the wife buy the vehicle cheaply yet the same vehicle had not been listed for sale by the court.

“There is no satisfactory explanation why or how the Plaintiff’s car illegally got listed on the auctioneer’s list that led to its illegal sale when it was not authorized by the court in its order of 17th December 2009,” Justice Mugambe said.

“It is easy to infer in the circumstances of this case that the second defendant’s hand(Muleterwa) was behind the grand scheme to illegally sell the plaintiff’s car. It is near blasphemy that the second defendant could stand in court on oath before me and insist that the sale of the plaintiff’s car was authorized by court whereas not.”

The judge blasted the senior police officer for being a liar for having known of the search operation for Kemirembe’s vehicle but went ahead and accepted to buy it.

Awards

The judge ordered the government to pay Kemirembe shs120 million in general damages for the inconvenience caused to her during the entire saga.

The judge also punished Assistant Commissioner of Police, Anatoli Muleterwa over conflict of interest when he assisted his wife to buy the vehicle that he knew had been missing for some time and the owner was looking for it.

Kemirembe was also awarded shs12 million as the value of the vehicle, shs150m in general damages, and an interest of 15% per year from the date of filing the suit in 2010 until payment in full.

“I will warn the second defendant (Muleterwa) for his actions as a police officer. He is warned seriously to desist from using his office to the prejudice of unsuspecting citizens. In addition, the second defendant shall pay shs 50 million of the plaintiff’s total award or be committed to the civil prison,” Justice Lydia Mugambe ordered.