Magara murder trial resumes next month

________________

The hearing of the case in which nine people are accused of kidnapping and murdering Susan Magara will resume on September 18, after close to five months postponement.

Justice Alex Mackay Ajiji, who has since been granted a two-year contract, set the new hearing date for the case on Thursday, September 18, when the parties appeared before him.

In April this year, Ssalaam Godfrey Ngobi, an assistant registrar at the Criminal Division of the High Court in Kampala, had adjourned the case indefinitely after Ajiji celebrated his 65th birthday, which is the retirement age for the judges of the High Court.

The case is at the stage of defence hearing after the court found that the accused persons have a case to answer.

They include Hajara Nakandi, Yusuf Lubega, Mahad Kisalita, Abbas Musa Buvumbo, Abubaker Kyewolwa, Ismail Bukenya, Hussein Wasswa, Hassan Kato Miiro and Muzamir Ssali. They have been on remand since 2018. 

Susan Magara, the 28-year-old daughter of city businessman John Magara, was kidnapped on February 7, 2018, along Kabaka Anjagala Road in Mengo, a Kampala suburb, as she drove back to her home about three kilometres away.

Her kidnappers then contacted her family and demanded $1m (about sh3.65b) before they could release her.

Despite the family having delivered $200,000 (about sh700m) to the ransom seekers, Susan Magara was brutally murdered by the ransom seekers, and three weeks later her body was recovered from Kigo in Wakiso district on February 27, 2018, where it had been dumped.

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

The indictment indicates that Magara was a victim of a ransom scheme hatched by Yakub Byensi, a former Allied Democratic Force (ADF) combatant who hails from Bunyoro and that he was known to her family.

Armed with the information, the suspects, according to the prosecution, started trailing her until they kidnapped her on February 7, 2018.

Following her kidnap, the suspects allegedly first held her at Nakandi’s home in Nateete and later at Bukenya’s home in Konge II in Makindye Division, Kampala, from where her two fingers were chopped off and sent to her family to show them how determined they were to kill her if the ransom money was not paid.

The indictment indicates that the suspects resolved to kill her because releasing her would expose them.

Prosecution says the suspects used part of the money to procure several motor vehicles, land in Buikwe and Luweero district respectively.