Court has directed the Prison authorities to produce convicted murderer, Dr Mathew Kirabo before a judge on November 21, 2023, for sentencing.

According to Sections 188 and 189 of the Penal Code Act, any person convicted of murder shall be sentenced to death. However, handing over a death sentence to murder convicts is no longer mandatory, with many being given life imprisonment. 

On May 30, 2022, Mukono High Court judge Henry Kawesa Isabirye convicted Kirabo of the murder of Desire Mirembe, who was his girlfriend while studying at Makerere University, following a protracted trial in his absentia.

“You are hereby directed to produce Kirabo before Justice Kaweesa, on November 21, 2023, at 10:00am,” Mukono High Court assistant registrar directed in a letter addressed to the Supreritendant of Prisons; Upper Prisons Luzira.

The letter dated November 13, 2023, was also copied to the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, and attached to Mukono Court.

On September 15, 2023, Kirabo was remanded to Luzira Prison after he was arrested in Kenya by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) and handed over to Kampala authorities. 

Prosecution said that after a misunderstanding, the doctor sedated Kirabo and killed her in Lugazi, Buikwe district, dumping her lifeless body into the sugarcane plantation on July 10, 2025.

The judge convicted Kirabo of murder after finding that prosecution produced incriminating evidence against him.

“The prosecution has proved all the ingredients of murder against you beyond reasonable doubt,” the judge ruled. 

Kaweesa ruled that Kirabo masterminded the murder of Mirembe.

Background

Mirembe went missing in July 2015 shortly after he left her hostel to go and meet her boyfriend, Kirabo.

Her body was later recovered in a sugarcane plantation in Jinja on July 7, 2015, at Kabubu village in Lugazi, Buikwe district.