HIV injection nurse appeal hearing date set

Sep 16, 2014

The hearing of a criminal appeal in which Rosemary Namubiru, a nurse who is currently serving a three year jail sentence for injecting a-2-year-old baby with HIV-tainted cannula needle, is slated for September 23, 2014.

By Michael Odeng and Betty Amamukirori
 
The hearing of a criminal appeal in which Rosemary Namubiru, a nurse who is currently serving a three year jail sentence for injecting a-2-year-old baby with HIV-tainted cannula needle, is slated for September 23, 2014.
 
Namubiru, 65 was produced before High Court judge, Albert Rugadya Atwooki on September 15, 2014 from Luzira prison. 
 
Her, lawyer, Ladslaus Rwakafuzi asked the court to release her on bail pending the hearing of her appeal. 
 
However, the judge said that the court would hear the application and the bail on the same day. 
 
The court also ordered Namubiru’s three sureties who were in court to appear on that day.
 
“We can hear the appeal and bail application on the same day if your lawyers accept,” the judge told the appellant.
 
Namubiru is challenging her conviction and the sentence on grounds that the trial court was unfair to her. 
 
Through her lawyer, Rwakafuuzi, she contends that the trial magistrate erred in law when she failed to properly evaluate the evidence on record, leading to miscarriage of justice. 
 
She also said the magistrate imposed a sentence that was disproportionate to the facts of the law. 
 
She added that the magistrate erred when she held that the appellant was guilty of the offence charged.   
 
Namubiru said the trial magistrate convicted her of an irrelevant offence, adding that the charge preferred against her was not related to HIV but to contagious diseases.
 
Namubiru was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison on May 19,this year by the Buganda Road trial Magistrate’s Court over negligence after she was found guilty of using a cannula needle on a baby that had earlier pricked her, much aware that she is HIV positive. 
 
She was arrested by Wandegeya police for maliciously injecting the 2-year-old patient with HIV-tainted cannula needle. 
 
Prosecution told court that while on duty at Victoria Medical Centre on Lumumba Avenue in Kampala on January 7, this year, Namubiru pricked her index finger before using the same cannula needle to prick the vein of a baby, knowing she was HIV-positive.
 
Buganda Road Court Chief Magistrate, Olive Kazaarwe convicted Namubiru after prosecution closed its line of nine witnesses who testified against her.
 
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