Will the Nebanda-Kalungi trial be similar to the Dralu-Kazini trial?? Detectives say they might prefer manslaughter charges against Mr Kalungi, accused of supplying drugs that reportedly killed the Butaleja Woman MP

  A detective leads the key suspect in MP Cerinah Nebanda’s death, Mr Adam Kalungi, to the crime scene in Buziga, Kampala yesterday. Detectives say they might prefer manslaughter charges against Mr Kalungi, accused of supplying drugs that reportedly killed the Butaleja Woman MP.  

Comment

Nicholas Sengoba

Uganda is one of the luckiest countries in the world. Whenever you have a mysterious death, the police just sit back and relax and out of the blue someone comes up and volunteers a confession; simple, case closed. No wonder the police is underfunded, why give money to people who don't have to work?

 

FIRST READ:

Persecuted for trailing the truth : The dangers of working as a pathologist in American slave states: Mulago suspends pathologist Onzivua while Bigirimana still remains in office.

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/01/persecuted-for-trailing-truth-dangers.html

If you are not the killer why Doctor pictures??? Adam Musa Masuba the so Called ex-lover of late Nebanda says that the late started taking drugs this YEAR as a way of reducing her weight: Oh: really

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/01/if-you-are-not-killer-why-doctor.html

 

Amazing contradictions: Has the Ugandan police become a totally rotten and bogus institution: Nebanda: Health cleared Pathologist's travel, MPs camp at Police

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/12/amazing-contradictions-has-ugandan.html

Ugandans Skeptical about Mysterious death of MP Cerinah Nebanda: We did not kill MP Nebanda, says Museveni

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/12/uganda-skeptical-about-mysterious.html

 

Police take Kalungi to crime scene

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Police-take-Kalungi-to-crime-scene/-/688334/1659004/-/3lp7kkz/-/index.html

By  ANDREW BAGALA

Posted  Monday, January 7  2013 at  02:00

In Summary

Reconstructing events. The alleged boyfriend of the deceased MP was taken to his Buziga house yesterday, in a police bid to find more clues to his confession.

Mr Adam Suleiman Kalungi, the suspected boyfriend of the late Butaleja Woman MP, was yesterday taken to his home in Buziga, a Kampala suburb, to reconstruct the scene of crime.

Police took Mr Kalungi to his house a day after he recorded an extrajudicial statement at Buganda Road Magistrate Court, in which he allegedly confessed to possessing narcotic drugs and consuming them with Cerinah Nebanda a night before she died.

The deputy police spokesperson, Mr Vincent Sekate, said the move would help detectives understand the sequence of events before and after the death of the MP.

“We wanted him to show us how the deceased accessed the house, where he had stored the suspected narcotic drugs and how the MP accessed them,” Mr Sekate said.

Reconstruction of a crime scene is helpful in knowing the sequence of events in an investigation.

Mr Sekate also confirmed that Mr Kalungi had recorded an extrajudicial statement but declined to say why they took him on Saturday when courts were supposed to be closed.
An extrajudicial statement cannot be retracted or altered in court as is with those made at police.

Mr Kalungi’s remarks in the extrajudicial statement, a top police investigator at Special Investigations Unit said, may greatly water down their charge of manslaughter against him and other five suspects, who are currently on remand at Luzira prison.

“Kalungi’s statement suggests that the deceased consumed the drugs knowingly, though she took the drugs the wrong way, which shifts culpability from him to the deceased,” an investigator said.

Nevertheless, the investigator said, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who is also following the case, will advise the police today.

Police had added a manslaughter charge against Mr Kalungi and five other people on allegations that they supplied the narcotic drugs, leading to the death of the MP.

Lydia Draru, alleged killer of Maj. Gen. Kazini, on her way to the Central Police Station, Nov. 10, 2009. Photograph for the Daily Monitor by Joseph Kiggundu.

Lydia Draru's kempt appearance counters Kazini murder

http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/12/uganda-skeptical-about-mysterious.html

Wednesday, 11th November 2009

http://www.ugandarecord.co.ug/index.php?issue=28&article=360&seo=Lydia%20Draru%27s%20kempt%20appearance%20counters%20Kazini%20murder%20story

By Timothy Kalyegira  

The widow of the former army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini, has raised questions about the circumstances of his murder early on Tuesday morning, Nov. 10, 2009.

"Maj. Gen. James Kazini's widow yesterday said she was doubtful that Lydia Draru, her husband's alleged killer, was the lone assailant in the killing of the former army commander," reported the Daily Monitor on Nov. 12, two days after the Uganda Record, in no uncertain terms, had made it clear in its reporting that Kazini's death was a political murder, not the result of a drunken brawl between him and his mistress, Lydia Draru.

In an interview with the Daily Monitor on Wednesday, Phoebe Kazini said: ""I highly doubt he was hit by a woman [acting] alone in that kind of way. I think that other people were involved, but of course there was this lady. Do you think a woman can fight a man in such a way? She must have been among the group which did it. We really doubt that she is the one who did it the way it was done."

On Tuesday morning, Fiona Basajjabalaba, wife of the businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba and also a cousin to the late Kazini, went to Mulago Hospital to view his body.

While there, she noted the tight security by the Military Police and the tension and suspicion around the mortuary and the fact that she was not allowed to view the body or, if she had to, had to get clearance from somebody who was constantly being consulted via phone.

This led her to start being suspicious of the whole story as had been given to the media, about Kazini's death.

It says something about the state of cohesion within the Museveni regime when the wife of a businessman whom most people believe is a front for President Yoweri Museveni's secret business deals, starts to question the official version of the events that ended Kazini's life.

Yesterday, Nov. 11, the Uganda Record got further details on Kazini's death.

A security analyst noted the fact that the alleged murder object was a 25mm aluminium hollow metal tube, hardly the sort of object to cause the kind of dent in Kazini's skull as happened.

Also, this security analyst, with sources in Military Intelligence, said Kazini was actually killed with an axe. The analyst added that Kazini had been trailed by a double cabin pickup on his way to Draru's house in Namuwongo in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

It is starting to become obvious that Kazini was murdered, but not in the way, not by the person, and not for the reasons the Ugandan public has been told.

The photographs of Draru that have so far appeared in the mainstream Ugandan newspapers hours after she was arrested and taken to the Central Police Station, are of a woman with full make up, hair all waxed in place, her clothes without a single drop of blood, well-pressed, all buttons in place.

General James Kazini

In no way do her appearance or her clothes suggest a scuffle or the sort of physical fight that would result in Kazini's head being so badly shattered.

The Uganda Record repeats and stands by its original story: Maj. Gen. James Kazini's death was a political assassination, not manslaughter following a fight between two drunken lovers.

The political killing was carried out with the full prior knowledge of State House and therefore, is the full responsibility of President Yoweri Museveni.

 

KAZINI’S KILLER LYDIA DRARU SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS

http://pressrelease.co.ug/pressuganda/?p=4862

By Editor on Sep 01, 2011

The high court in Kampala has found Lydia Draru the woman who confessed to killing Gen James Kazini guilty of manslaughter and sentenced her to 14 years in prison.
Trial Judge Justice Monica Mugyenyi delivered her judgment just 20 minutes after the assessors had advised her to convict the accused.

The Judge said the prosecution had failed to prove that Draru committed murder and she took into consideration that she was remorseful and at the beginning of the trial confessed to killing Kazini in self defence.

“The convict appeared remorseful and pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter at plea taking,” held Justice Mugyenyi.

Gen. Kazini was found dead in her house in Namuwongo, a Kampala suburb.
Prosecution told court that Ms Draru hit Maj. Gen. Kazini with an iron bar on the head and killed him on November 10, 2009 at her rented home in Wabigalo, Makindye Division in Kampala.

Ms Draru, who was the deceased’s mistress, has been on remand at Luzira Prison for close to two years since being charged with murder in 2009.

However, she asked court to forgive her saying she did not intend to kill the soldier and that the deceased’s family forgive her.

 

 

Lydia Draru’s manslaughter trial highlights violent relationship

http://www.independent.co.ug/ugandatalks/2011/08/lydia-drarus-manslaughter-trial-highlights-violent-relationship/  

By Achola Rosario
The trial of the woman accused of murdering the Late Major General James Kazini resumed in the high court today with 3 prosecution witnesses giving their testimony. Dr Susan Nabadda from Mulago hospital, who examined Lydia Draru after the crime, testified that Draru had 30 fresh scratch marks all over her neck but refused to categorically state that they were related to attempted strangulation.Visibly upset by the remark during the 15 minute recess that followed the doctor’s testimony, Lydia Draru broke down in tears on the benches and had to be comforted by the prison warders that flanked her. Draru has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the prosecution team Fred Kakooza and Faith Turumanya from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions argues that it was a premeditated murder. Her defense team says that she acted in self-defense and Dr Nabadda says that she is of sound mental health.

The case is being heard by Justice Monica Mugyeni. Draru’s defense team comprises of the head of the criminal prosecutions department at the Law Development Centre, Annette Karungi, who is also senior lecturer there as well as Musa Sembajja, also from the LDC.

They were directed to take on the case by the state because Draru did not have a lawyer by the time of the hearing as she could not afford one. FIDA (U), an NGO that offers Legal Aid to women, especially in domestic violence related cases, does not seem to be involved.

Her niece, 18 year old Tobora Scovia also testified today to the events of the night of Nov 9 and subsequent murder in the early hours of Nov 10. Scovia testified that Kazini punched Draru in the mouth and slapped her twice. Draru ran to the living room and he followed pushing Draru on the sofa and strangling her.

Scovia said that she went for help outside. And as she was coming back in to check on her aunt, Draru moved to the bathroom, where Scovia thought she was going to hide, but instead she came back with an iron bar which they used to clean under beds and sofas with a rug wrapped around it.

She added that Draru hit the deceased first in the back and then on the back of the head. Earlier the state coroner had testified that Kazini died of brain trauma as a result of a head injury. Two more witnesses present their evidence at the high court tomorrow at 2pm.