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A Police officer attached to the Directorate of Forensic Services has revealed that 1617 iron sheets were recovered from a farm in Mukono, belonging to the former Karamoja affairs state minister Agnes Nandutu.

Clement Watiti made the revelation today, May 2, 2024, before the Anti-Corruption Court judge Jane Okuo Kajuga.

The police officer was testifying in a case in which Nandutu, the Bududa district Woman MP, is accused of diverting iron sheets meant for the Karamoja sub-region under the guidance of Chief State Attorney David Bisamunyu.

Watiti told the court that on March 24, 2023, when he was at the forensic headquarters at around 11:00 am, he received a phone call from the head of crime scene management, ASP Damel Sserunjogi, instructing him to go to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Kibuli to meet Commissioner of Police Chelimo Beata, for further details.

“We proceeded as instructed and by 11:50 am we were at Kibuli where I met Chelimo, Assistant Superintendent of Police Winfred Nakatudde and Nandutu. While at Kibuli, Chelimo informed me that CID was investigating a case of alleged diversion of iron sheets,” Watiti told the court.

The witness said Chelimo told them that Nandutu had confessed to receiving 2000 iron sheets from the Office of the Prime Minister and that she had taken them to her farm in Mukono and they needed a crime scene officer to help them recover the iron sheets.

Following a brief from Chelimo, the witness said he and other police officers proceeded to Nandutu’s farm and recovered the iron sheets.

The witness, however, stated that before setting off to Mukono, Nandutu informed them that she had an urgent meeting to attend and said would join them later. She, according to the witness, gave them a contact person, who was her farm assistant John Wetanga, to represent her.

“We proceeded without her up to the farm, where we reached at about 3:00 pm and we were received by Wetanga. We informed Wetanga that we had come to perform a search. Afande Babweteera informed Wetanga that we were going there to perform a search in the farm premises and in his response Wetanga told us that he had been informed that we had gone there to recover the iron sheets and led us where the iron sheets were piled,” the court heard.

The police officers testified that some iron sheets were piled in the main building in one of the rooms where Wetanga was sleeping and a few others in the poultry house.

Nandutu is battling charges of dealing with suspect property, contrary to section 21A (1) of the Anti-Corruption Act. If found guilty, Nandutu will be sentenced to seven years in prison.

Prosecution alleges that Nandutu between the month of June and July 2022, at the OPM stores in Namanve, and in Kkola Cell, Bulwanyi Parish, Mukono district, dealt with government property, namely, 2000 pre-painted iron sheets of gauge 28 marked “Office of the Prime Minister”, by receiving and holding the items, which she had reason to believe were acquired as a result of loss of public property, an offence under Section 10 (1) of the Anti-Corruption Act 2009.

The case has been adjourned to May 27, 2024 for cross-examination.