HORRIFYING: Kaliisa (centre) is led away from Mwanga II Road Court after confessing

By Dorah Naamala
A KAMPALA court was left perplexed on Thursday as a 19-year-old murder suspect took them through the chilly story of how he murdered his 47-year-old lover, Vivian Kavuma.

“When I stabbed her in the throat, I thought I had killed her. I decided to go out but I heard her groaning. I went back to finish her. I cut her throat,” Yoweri Kaliisa told a fully- packed Mwanga II Road Court.
Kaliisa, a security guard, gave the harrowing confession before Grade I Magistrate Boniface Wamala after spending two weeks at old Kampala Police station, where he had confessed to the crime.

Kaliisa’s reason was that Kavuma had confessed to being HIV- positive. “She brought me to work as a guard but I befriended her and she accepted. Sometime back, she told me that she had infected me with AIDS, that is why I decided to finish her off,” said Kaliisa, whose innocent face was a contrast to the chilling words he was uttering.

The court was hushed throughout the testimony. Some elderly women in the audience held handkerchiefs to their mouths in apparent disbelief.

Court heard that Kaliisa connived with Kavuma’s 70-year-old uncle, Sam Walusimbi, who the deceased had threatened to evict from their home in Lungujja, a Kampala suburb.

Kavuma had just come back from the US after seven years.

Kaliisa said Walusimbi paid him sh180,000 as a token of appreciation, which he banked the next morning before alerting the neighbours of the murder.

As the court audience shifted uneasily in their seats, the silence made Kaliisa’s firm voice even louder as he continued to give the sordid details of the June 7 murder.

“I first took alcohol and then smoked some marijuana (narcotic drug). I went to her place. I knocked and she opened. I grabbed her hard, looped her neck with a rope and strangled her but she did not die. I looked for a knife and pierced her throat,” he said.

“Blood gushed out, leaving all my clothes stained. I called Walusimbi who helped me to put her body under the bed for I thought she was dead.

“But I heard her groaning and I came back to finish her off. I also don’t believe that I killed her but I did it,” the handcuffed Kaliisa said.

After the over four-hour session, Kaliisa was asked whether he was speaking the truth, which he affirmed and signed a statement before his case was forwarded to the High Court for trial.

A magistrate’s court has no jurisdiction to try murder cases but a suspect can confess before a Chief Magistrate.
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