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High Court in Mukono has sentenced Dr Mathew Kirabo to 30 years in prison for murdering his girlfriend, Desire Mirembe.

According to Section 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 in absentia convicted Dr Mathew Kirabo of the murder of Mirembe, who was studying at Makerere University.

On September 13, 2023, Kirabo was arrested in Nairobi, where he has been hiding, by the International Police (Interpol) after a year in hiding. Subsequently, he was handed over to Kampala authorities on September 15.

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 in July 2015.

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

▪️  Dr Kirabo arrives in court for sentencing

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.