Court assessors at the Mukono High Court have advised Judge Henry Kaweesa Isabirye to find Mathew Kirabo guilty of killing his then girlfriend, Desire Mirembe in 2015.
Lead assessor Robert Sseguya told court on Monday that all the evidence in place shows that the accused masterminded the murder and prayed that he is found guilty.
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“There is conclusive evidence to show that Kirabo killed Desire Mirembe, this is why he ran into hiding,” Sseguya told court in part.
Sseguya also presented to court a video showing Kirabo consenting to the murder in a statement he gave to police before being granted bail in 2016.
Court assessors are often involved in high profile cases and their duty is to listen to evidence from both sides to assist the judge with input on the merits of the case before judgment is handed down.
Emmanuel Musoke, who is the father of the murdered Mirembe expressed concerns saying that the judiciary failed to get hold Kirabo even when the evidence was clear that he is the one behind the death of his daughter.
Musoke said that with the assessor’s report, they hope the court can give their family the justice they deserve.
Human rights activists and political analyst Frank Gashumba told this website shortly after the court session that he will do everything that is humanly possible to see that Kirabo is traced and brought back to serve his punishment.
Judge Henry Kaweesa set May 30, 2022 as the date on which he will give his final verdict.
Mirembe, a then Makerere University student disappeared and her body was recovered from a sugarcane plantation in Lugazi, Buikwe district, on July 7, 2015.
Her suspected killer, Mathew Kirabo confessed to the gruesome act and was charged in the Jinja Magistrates Court with murder before being remanded. He was later granted bail on November 24, 2016 and has been out of prison since.
The case was later moved to Mukono on the instructions of the then Principal Judge Yorokamu Bamwine after the state complained that the crime had been committed within the Mukono jurisdiction.
In 2017, the Mukono High Court said that it did not have money to start hearing the case.
In May 2021, court in Mukono heard the prime suspect, Mathew Kirabo’s application in which he was seeking return of his passport so that he could travel to the United States of America for further studies.
Kirabo’s lawyer, Isaac Kato told court then that his client needed to travel urgently and could not even make it to court. The suspect was, however, found in his car, a black Harrier SUV just outside court.
The family then mounted pressure on court to dispense justice for their fallen daughter, saying that if a date could be fixed to hear the suspect’s application, then they should also fix a date to hear the main case.
Kirabo only attended two sessions of court before he went awol.
