A series of phone-recorded audio clips as the kidnappers of Susan Magara demanded ransom from her parents have been played out in court. 

In the audio clips, a man speaking in Runyoro language is heard threatening to kill Susan in case her parents failed to raise $1m (about sh3.65b) ransom. 

The audio clips were played out in court on Tuesday, October 24, after the testimony of Susan’s father John Magara who narrated how the kidnappers tossed him up in an attempt to deliver to them part of ransom money to release his daughter from captivity.  

High Court Judge Alex Ajiji is presiding over the trial. 

Susan, 28, was kidnapped on February 7, 2018, on Kabaka Anjagala Road in Mengo, as she drove back home in Lungujja and her car was later found abandoned near her gate.

Some of the suspects in the murder case of Suzan Magara, who was kidnapped and killed in 2018. (Photo by Wilfred Sanya)

Unfortunately, she was murdered in cold blood and three weeks later her body was recovered from Kigo in Wakiso District where it had been dumped. 

At the time of her murder, Susan’s family had paid part of the ransom money of about sh700m to the killers. 

John is the fourth witness in the matter. Others are Yusuf Muhindo, 39, a senior Hansard editor at Parliament, Robert Magara, an uncle to Susan and Sgt. Enoch Kiganyira, a Police officer attached to the cyber-crime department in the Police Force. 

The accused are Mahad Kisalita, the former imam of Usafi makeshift mosque in Mengo-Kisenyi, Yusuf Lubega, Hussein Wasswa, Muzamiru Ssali, Abubaker Kyewolwa, Hassan Kato Miiro, Amir Bukenya and Hajara Nakandi. 

The prosecution alleges that the accused and others still at large on February 7, 2018, kidnapped Susan with intent to procure a ransom for her liberation from the danger of being murdered. 

Chief state attorney Joseph Kyomuhendo and senior state attorney Irene Nakimbugwe are prosecuting the case while Richard Kombuga, Benjamin Wanda, John Kabagambe and Zaina Nampeera are the defence lawyers.  

The prosecution alleges that the accused and others still at large on February 7, 2018, kidnapped Susan with the intent to procure a ransom for her liberation from the danger of being murdered. 

The indictment indicates that Susan was a victim of a ransom scheme hatched by a one Yakub Byensi, a former combatant with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels who hails from Bunyoro like Susan and that he was known to her family just like Lubega who used to work in Container Village with Susan’s mother. Byensi is still at large. 

Armed with insider information, the suspects, according to the prosecution, started trailing Susan until they kidnapped her in Lungujja on her way home. 

They allegedly first took her to Nakandi’s home in Nateete and later to Amir Bukenya’s home in Konge II Makindye, from where two of her fingers were cut off and sent to her family to show their determination to murder her if ransom money was not paid. 

The indictment indicates that the decision to kill Susan was because releasing her would expose the kidnappers’ identities. 

During her requiem mass at Our Lady of Africa Catholic Church in Mbuya, the family revealed that her killers had chopped off her fingers and sent them together with a recording of the incident to the family.