Katanga widow tells court her health is failing

Luzira Prison doctors say Ms Molly Katanga's condition is beyond their expertise

Ms Molly Katanga has reapplied for bail telling court that her health is failing yet Luzira Prison where she has been remanded has declared it cannot handle her medical case.

Ms Katanga, 55, listed several health complications, including the trauma she suffered during the murder for which she is charged with that resulted in her undergoing multiple brain surgeries.

Through her joint team of legal representatives from the Kampala Associated Advocates and Tumusiime, Kabega and Co. Advocates, she told the High Court that she also suffers from hypertension, vertigo, resolving tissue injury and breast fibrocystic disease (benign breast masses).

"The applicant suffers grave illness which amounts to an exceptional circumstance for the grant of bail by this Court," Ms Katanga's always said.

"We thus pray that the Applicant be granted bail on ground that she is gravely ill."

Ms Katanga was on January 24 charged with the murder of her husband Henry Katanga, who was found dead in their bedroom in Mbuya, a Kampala suburb, last November.

She is jointly charged with her daughters Patricia Kakwenza and Martha Nkwanzi, as well as a medical doctor who first responded to the scene of murder, Charles Otai, and a former domestic worker George Amanyire.

On April 9, the High Court rejected Ms Katanga's bail application on ground that her medical report in proof of 'exceptional circumstances' was not certified by medical officer of Uganda Prisons Service showing that her illness cannot be treated while in custody.

Ms Katanga's lawyers have since got Luzira Prison to certify that her emdical condition is beyond the capacity of medics at the national detention facility to handle.

"It was the Prisons’ conclusion that the assessment and monitoring of the progress of the multiple breast masses was beyond the capacity of the prison’s health services," Ms Katanga's lawyers said in the new application that is backed with a sheaf of medical reports.

The medical reports show that Ms Katanga was has been undergoing periodic Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at Mulago but that since she was taken into custody, there she has missed even follow=up services by an ENT surgeon to address her paranasal sinustitis and vertigo.

This treatment therapy was recommended by medics at Mulago.

The High Court has set May 21 for the bail hearing although the prosecution is expected to submit its objections at least a week before then.

Ms Katanga was reportedly terribly injured with multiple head wounds, had suffered loss of blood in a condition calles hypeevolemic shock and had fractures on her hands according to a report issues by a panel.of doctors appointed by the Ministry of Health. she underwent multiple surgeries to the brain.

She was served with a warrant for arrest while still undergoing intensive care treatment in a Kampala hospital. She has been showing up in court on wheelchair, with her head heavily bandaged.

Her lawyers argue that besides the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the the fact that murder is a bailable offence, the earlier court's decision that her medical form was not certified by a doctor from Luzira Prison no longer holds.