DPP intervenes in Hosanna Real Estate case

By Vision Reporter

The new Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Justice Mike Chibita has written to his staff demanding a written explanation over claims that they ordered police to close the file they had opened against the officials of Hosanna Real Estate Limited.

The move follows a complaint addressed to DPP on January 15, 2014 by some of the victims who had been defrauded of their money, and property as a result of fraudulent activities which the Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department (CIID) had investigated.

Highly placed sources at the CIID told New Vision that they had received instruction from the Senior State Attorney Jane Okuo – who also doubles as the spokesperson of the DPP – directing them to close the file on January 9, 2014.

The detective said their first attempt to have the directors charged had been frustrated by officials in the DPP’s office.

According to police they had submitted a General Enquiries File 227 of 2012 to the DPP to sanction the charges against the directors of Hosanna, an official from the Administrator General’s office and city lawyer Mariam Mbabali of Mbabali and Company Advocates who is accused of entering most of the forgeries on the titles.

The offences ranged from forgery, abuse of office, uttering and making a false document, theft, fraudulent disposal of trust property, impersonation and criminal intermeddling in the estate of the deceased among others.

New Vision has been told that Justice Chibita had recalled the file following the complaints from the victims and also asked Kajuga to explain in writing why she decided to order the police to close the file.

Meanwhile detectives have recorded a fresh statement from Mariam Mbabali, the key architect in the transfer of the property from the estate of the late Nasanairi Bidda into the names of Emmanuel Kasumba, the former Director of Hosanna Real Estate.

There was reprieve for the family early this year when the High Court granted the family an injunction forbidding the Administrator General and the Real Estate Company together with any of his agents from trespassing on the disputed piece of property.

The property is located in Buloba Plot 34 block 286 and has since been partitioned into 1000 plots and was being sold by Hosanna.

Early this week, police finally arrested the elusive directors of Hosanna following complaints from several victims who had been conned of their money either through the company selling their plots twice or refusing to give them copies of the title.