Mureeba faces death over co-wife’s murder

By Anne Mugisa

Janet Mureeba, an accountant at Luzira Prisons, was on trial for killing her co-wife, Norah Namara. Prosecution alleged that together with Ismail Aliga and Kassim Byaruhanga, she killed Namara at her home in Ntinda, a Kampala suburb.

It started as an ordinary struggle between two women for the heart of a man, Charles Mureeba. Janet was the legally-wed wife, while Norah Namara alias Peace Kamusiime, was his long-time girlfriend with whom he had a daughter and was expecting another child. It is reported that Janet was much older than the husband. She was also very wealthy and always splashed money on him.

Namara worked as a receptionist at the Population Secretariat in the Ministry of Finance.

Mureeba had Namara a house in Kamwokya in 1996, where her neighbour, Muhammad Kato, became her friend in whom she constantly confided her fears. She had also introduced Mureeba to him as her husband.

In 1997, Namara told Kato about the threats to her life from Janet. She said she wanted to relocate to another place for her safety because Janet was always in Kamwokya. She moved to Najjanankumbi, but shortly afterwards, she saw Janet there, which she also reported to Kato and told him she wanted to relocate once again.

According to Kato, Namara seemed so frightened of the threats that she asked her cousin, Rosette Kasabiiti, to live with her and her daughter. Kasabiiti, who also testified in court, said she started living with Namara in Najjanankumbi in November 1998. By December that year, Namara was so scared that they relocated to a new residence in Ntinda.

That same year, Namara had reported the threat to her life to Naomi Kibaju, then Acting head of the Population Secretariat. In a panic, she had told Kibaju that her tormentor had threatened to invade the office and shoot her. She was so shaken that she requested to be driven back home and she was. Kibaju also advised her to report the matter to the Police, which she did. Kibaju relocated Namara from the front desk to an inner office, but the threats persisted. She kept reporting the developments to Kibaju.

On the evening of June 6, 1996, Namara was gunned down at her home in Ntinda along with her two-year-old daughter Gabriella. Days later, Janet, Bessi Tumusiime, Gorreti and two men, Ismail Aliga and Kassim Byaruhanga, were arrested.

The trial

The case was tried by High Court Judge, Augustine Kania. Prosecution summoned a number of witnesses.

Bright Mugabi, a mechanic, was the first witness. He said at the end of May 1999, while he was at Jemba Garage (Singha Singha’s garage) in Kisenyi, Kampala, where he worked, Ismail Aliga and Kassim Byaruhanga asked him to find them a self-drive vehicle for hire. They said a rich lady wanted them to kill another woman in Ntinda. Mugabi and Aliga knew each other because they had been in the army together.

Mugabi said he refused to provide a vehicle, but the two men returned to the garage on Sunday, June 6, 1999 at 4:00pm driving a white double-cabin pick-up, which needed repair.

After repairing it, he said he opened the rear cabin door to clean the inside and saw a brown bag containing a blue overcoat and a sub-machine gun. Before leaving at 5:30pm, Aliga requested the manager of the garage for a gun rivet and a drill, which are used to pull off and fix number plates on vehicles.

Mugabi said on June 7, 1999, at about 8:30am, the two men returned with the same pick-up truck. They gave it to him to clean. As he worked, he overheard Aliga tell Byaruhanga in Luganda, “How could you fail to beat a mere a woman.” According to him, “to beat” a woman could have meant to shoot. The two then spoke in a language, which Mugabi thought was Nubian. They left in the same truck, whose number plate had been removed and placed on the dash board. Later in the day, Mugabi learnt of the murder.

According to Jolly Kapere, another witness and Namara’s neighbour in Ntinda, on June 6, 1999, at about 7:30pm, she saw a white double-cabin pick-up drive past her. A part from the driver, two men sat in the back seat. Later as she went out to a party, the same vehicle was parked near shops along a road that is normally not busy. One of the doors was open. Shortly afterwards, she heard gunshots, which frightened her and she decided to return home. That is when she saw a man in an overcoat running to the pick up, from Namara’s home. He carried an object looking like a gun. The man fitting Aliga’s description entered the pick-up truck through the open door before it sped off. Kapere went to Namara’s house and saw two bodies in a pool of blood.

Prosecution’s other witness was Mureeba’s maid, Mariam Ayebare. She said as they were at home in Luzira, Kampala, on the evening of June 6, Charles Mureeba’s niece, Bessi Tumusiime, received a call at around 7:30pm. Tumusiime asked the caller: “Have you finished?” According to Ayebare, the Mureebas had travelled up-country and returned home that evening. When Tumusiime gave Janet the news, she was very happy. When Charles left the home, Tumusiime and Janet were joined by another friend, Gorreti and the three danced around rejoicing.

Gorreti commented that Janet was the winner and all the property would be hers. Tumusiime also told Janet that what had been troubling her was over because the malaya (prostitute) had been killed.

Three days later, Gorreti brought a witchdoctor to the Mureeba home. The witchdoctor slaughtered a chicken in a ritual that Ayebare spied from inside the room, where Janet had ordered her to go. The chicken was boiled and the three women ate it.

According to Ayebare, the three women had become close in June. They met and talked secretly in the sitting room for long periods for about a week before the murder.

Days after the murder, Ayebare is said to have heard Tumusiime tell Gorreti on phone that the witchdoctor she brought was not protecting her because she was about to be arrested.
Janet had been arrested then.

Defence
During the trial the suspects denied the murder. In her defence, Janet Mureeba gave unsworn evidence denying knowledge of Namara and that she was up-country when the murder happened. She said she used to go to Kamwokya to pick her child and not because she was tracking Namara. She also said she called a Muslim to slaughter chicken at her house because of his religion, not because he was a witchdoctor.

Aliga and Byaruhanga gave sworn evidence denying the murder. Aliga said he was at Kayunga Hospital attending to a sick child on the fateful day. He denied knowledge of Jemba Garage. He said Mugabi concocted evidence against him to punish him for reporting his bid to escape from prison when they were both inmates at Luzira Prison before.

JUDGEMENT
But Justice Kania rejected their defence, convicted them and sentenced them to death. He agreed with the witnesses that Janet Mureeba, Ismail Aliga and Kassim Byaruhanga were guilty of the offence.

Tumusiime and Gorreti were, however, acquitted because there was no incriminating evidence against them.

The appeal
The convicts appealed against the decision of the High Court, saying the judge was mistaken on several accounts and as a result, made a wrong decision. They said Namara was not Mureeba’s wife as referred to in the case. They also said there was no evidence showing that the three connived to murder her, or that the two men did the killing. They said it was a mistake for the judge to believe that the vehicle Kapere saw in Ntinda was the same Mugabi saw at the garage in Kisenyi. They also argued that all the evidence presented to court lacked corroboration.

However, the Court of Appeal, consisting of justices, Alice Mpagi Bahigeine, Steven Engwau and Christine Kitimbo, upheld the conviction and sentence on March 23, 2001.

The convicts were still not satisfied and went on to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, however, said seven key witnesses, who did not know each other, corroborated each others’ story, proving the convicts’ guilt. They said the chain of events as brought out in evidence proved that Janet procured the murder and the men executed it. “Tumusiime and Gorreti are lucky to have been acquitted,” the judges noted.

The Supreme Court justices, Arthur Oder, John Tsekooko, Alfred Karokora, Joseph Mulenga and George Kanyeihamba upheld the verdict of the lower courts. Thus on July 21, 2006, Janet Mureeba, Ismail Aliga and Kassim Byaruhanga, lost the final appeal. They await death by hanging at the Luzira Prison condemned section.

After Mureeba’s imprisonment, her husband kept a low profile and attempts to locate him were futile.

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