Court on Monday  (March 25)  watched a video clip showing a blow-by-blow account of how Susan Magara’s killers made incessant demands for ransom money before murdering her .

The one-minute video clip shows Magara blindfolded by a sellotape pleading with her family not to engage the Police, but instead send money to the kidnappers for her release.

The video clip extracted from a flash disc that was sent to Magara’s family by her kidnappers was admitted in court as part of prosecution evidence in her murder case after it was played out in court.

Parents to the Late Susan Magara,John Magara and Immaculate Kabajulizi give a speech during a requiem mass at Our Lady Africa Catholic Church Mbuya on 28 February 2018. File photo

Enock Kinene, a forensic expert from the Police’s cybercrimes department in Naguru, tendered the video in court presided over by Justice Alex Ajiji.

In the video, Susan, speaking Runyoro, is heard saying words that have been translated to mean, “Dad, don’t involve the Police; just give them the money and they will release me. Dad, please help me.  Look for the money so that these people release me.”

A voice of a man is also heard in the background telling her what to say. However, it is only the man’s shadow seen.

Kinene also tendered in court a host of mobile phone sets the kidnappers dropped at different spots, which Susan’s family was supposed to use while communicating with them for instructions on where to put the ransom.

Siblings laying a wreath on the casket containing the remains of Susan Magara

Court documents indicate that a few days after kidnapping Magara, the assailants called her family and directed them to drop off the money along Entebbe Road where they had hidden a certain envelope.

During the funeral, one of Magara's relatives  said the envelope,  contained two fingers cut off from the deceased and a flash

“The flash had a video showing how her two fingers had been cut while she was watching and was crying,” Lenny Muganwa, uncle to Susan's father said.

" The kidnappers asked a lot of things from us as a family which we tried to fulfill to save Susan.It is unfortunate that they later killed her, " said Muganwa during the funeral service at Our Lady of Africa Mbuya Catholic Church

Susan’s father John Magara (left), family member and former minister Henry Kajura during the requiem mass /File photo

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

The 28-year-old Susan was kidnapped on February 7, 2018, along Kabaka Anjagala road in Mengo city suburb as she drove back to her Lungujja home about three kilometres away.

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

Her kidnappers 

 Despite the family having delivered $200,000 (about sh700m) to the kidnappers, she was murdered and three weeks later her body was recovered from Kigo in Wakiso district on August 27, 2018, where it had been dumped

Susan worked as a cashier at the Kampala offices of   Bwendero Dairy Farm owned by her father John Magara.

Siblings of Susan Magara

Allegations

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 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 as well. Lubega used to work in Container Village with Susan’s mother. Byensi is still at large.

Armed with insider information, the suspects, according to 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 her two fingers were cut off and sent them 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.