The High Court in Mbale has acquitted a man who was previously accused of raping a woman when he broke into her home at night.
Mohammad Higenyi was accused of breaking into the victim’s house at around 2am at Doko cell, Namatala Industrial Division in Mbale City and raped her.
According to the victim’s testimony in court, after the incident on August, 24, 2023, she telephoned her sister in law who came, and took her to the hospital, where she was put on PEP, and also given contraceptive pills to prevent her from becoming pregnant.
In his judgement, Justice Farouq Lubega said that whereas prosecution had ably proved beyond reasonable doubt that victim had been raped, there was no evidence to prove that this crime was committed by Higenyi.
The judge said whereas the victim said that while she was sleeping, one of her twin children started crying, she woke up to find out what had happened to the baby, switched on the light of her Itel phone, only to see a shadow of a person seated on her bed and proceeded to flash the light of phone , there is no proper evidence to prove it was Higenyi.
He said there could be a case of mistaken identity.
“It is evident from the testimony of PW1(victim) that she was the only witness who saw and identified the accused during and or after the commission of the regrettable offence. The other undisputed fact is that the offence against the accused herein was allegedly committed at night. Court can convict on such evidence after warning itself and the assessors of the special need for caution before convicting on reliance of the correctness of the identification. The reason necessitating caution is that there is a possibility that the witness might be mistaken in identifying the accused,” Justice Lubega said.
The judge said it was wrong for the police investigating officer to only consider the victim’s evidence and not taking extra steps to investigate the veracity of the victim’s allegations.
“In modern criminal justice system, the police are expected to take extra steps when investigating sexual offences. There is a need to carry out forensic analysis on the DNA, fingerprints, swap etc. to ensure that the accused is scientifically placed at scene of crime. This has a clear role to play in the successful prosecution of sexual offence cases, otherwise many perpetrators of sexual crimes will continue to a walk away freely,” the judge said.
The judge also reasoned with one of the witnesses evidence in which he said he is related to the victim’s husband called Mutwalib Mutebi and that both used to stay in the same village at Doku Cell, Namatala ward, Industrial Division, Mbale City but had business misunderstandings.
The suspect attributed his predicament on the incident where he went and picked a television set from the victim’s house to compensate for the money he owed to him by the victim’s husband.
“The revelations from the evidence of DW1 and DW2’s testimonies point at existing animosity/grudge between the accused and victim’s husband which was confirmed by the victim,” the judge ruled.
“In the view of the above, this court cannot rule out the possibility that these criminal proceedings against the accused person for the offence of rape could have been actuated to wreck vengeance on the accused. This court cannot be used as a tool for settling personal grudges. Therefore, upon thorough examination of all the evidence on record, I find that the prosecution has failed to prove to the satisfaction of court the element of the accused’s participation in the commission of the offence of rape as charged.
The judge consequently acquitted Higenyi.