The High Court in Soroti has set Thursday, February 15 as the date it will pronounce judgment on Francis Andrew Obirai, the jilted lover who poured acid on his girlfriend after the court of appeal quashed his previous sentence of 35 years.

On February 08 2023, three Justices of Appeal sitting in Mbale High Court ordered a re-trial of Obirai.

However, the High Court in Soroti, presided over by Justice Dr. Henry Peter Adonyo on Wednesday 14, set February 15, 2024, for Obirai to receive his sentence.

Obirai who was earlier convicted and sentenced to 35 years on March 9, 2018, for attacking his lover, Dorothy Atim, with acid, petitioned to court of appeal.

Atim was a sales representative working with Vision Group.

The grounds of his claim were that during the time of his trial at the High Court in Soroti which was by then presided over by Justice David Batema, court assessors did not take oath.

In a unanimous ruling delivered on February 7, 2023, the Justices; Hellen Obura, Catherine Bamugemereire and Christopher Madrama ordered for the retrial on grounds that the High Court trial proceeded without assessors.

Obirai lodged his appeal with the Court of Appeal on 12 grounds; one of which was that the trial Judge erred in law when he convicted him without following the law governing the assessors’ participation in the trial proceedings, thereby causing a miscarriage of justice.

Obirai was accused of attacking Atim (30) using acid on September 8, 2013, at their home in senior quarters in Soroti town.

Atim was rushed to Mulago Hospital, Kampala, in critical condition. She died in March 2014, after spending five months in the intensive care unit (ICU).