A 26-year-old businessman dealing in handicrafts will spend the next three years behind bars after he was sentenced for possessing a firearm and 30 live bullets.

Joseph Okiring, a resident of Kireka, Kira municipality in Wakiso district, on Tuesday (February 21, 2023) was sentenced by the General Court Martial (GCM) in Kampala after finding him guilty of two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

The charges contravene Sections 3 (1) and 2 (a) of the Firearms Act, Cap 299 and attract a maximum sentence of 10-year imprisonment, upon conviction.

Sentencing the convict, GCM chairperson Brig. Gen. Freeman Mugabe said he had considered the period the convict had spent on remand and the fact that he was a family man.

“Therefore, after deducting a period of two years and seven days spent on remand and a period of six months for mitigating factors, this court sentences you to three years and 23 days’ imprisonment on count one of unlawful possession of a firearm.

On county two of unlawful possession of ammunition, you are sentenced to three years and 23 days. Both sentences run concurrently,” Mugabe ruled.

He, however, advised the convict to appeal within 14 days if he was not satisfied with the decision of his court.

Prior, prosecutors Lt Alex Mukhana, Lt Gift Mubehamwe, Privates Regina Nanzala and Anthony Phillip Olupot had invited the court to accord the convict a maximum sentence, saying the offence was rampant.

However, defence lawyer Capt. Nsubuga Busagwa mitigated that Okiring was a family man, readily pleaded guilty and didn’t waste the court’s time, therefore, requesting the court for a lenient sentence.

Charges

The prosecution told the court that Okiring and others, still at large on or around February 13, 2021, while at Katenda Zone, Katwe II Parish, Makindye Division in Kampala district, were found in unlawful possession of 30 rounds of ammunition.

That during the same place and time, the convict illegally possessed a firearm to wit; an AK47 rifle S/NO. UG UPDF 56-5903583, the said gun being ordinarily a monopoly of the defence forces.