Wife murderer to remain in jail for life

By Hillary Nsambu             

KAMPALA - The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal for leniency by a 74-year-old man who killed his wife for denying him sex eight years ago.

Yusuf Sokolo, a peasant from Kayunga district, had appealed to the court, saying he was apologetic to his children and to his dead wife’s relatives.

In his appeal, he argued he did not intend to kill his wife, but reports indicated that he hacked her to death for refusing to sleep (have sex) with him one night.

His plea for leniency was met with the appellate court’s rejection.

A panel of three judges agreed in unison that it would be “unjustifiable for men to enforce right of sexual intercourse by force or take the law in their own hands to the extent of causing death to a spouse who withholds those rights”.

Current Inspector General of Government (IGG) Justice Irene Mulyagonja was the trial judge.

Court dismissed Sokolo’s appeal outright, with the panel of justices saying they would give their reasons later.
 

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The members of the coram included Justices Richard Buteera (chair), Solome Balungi Bbosa and Geoffrey Kiryabwire.

Trial judge Mulyagonja had also agreed with the prosecution team that Sokolo no doubt had all the intentions to murder his wife for refusal to share the matrimonial bed with him for only that fateful night.

The then-Mukono resident state attorney David Ndamurani-Ateenyi was the lead prosecutor.

He had asked court to pass a death sentence against the killer husband.

According to the prosecution side, Sokolo cut his wife – Mwajuma Namatovu – several times with a machete on the night of September 24, 2006 in the remote village of Namutya, Kayunga district.

She died instantly.