Uwera appeals 20-year jail sentence

 

KAMPALA - Jacqueline Uwera, the widow of the late Juvenal Kananura Nsenga, has lodged a notice of appeal against her conviction and 20-year jail sentence at the Court of Appeal.

 

Uwera was convicted of murder and handed a 20-year jail term on September 23, after High Court Judge Duncan Gaswaga found her guilty of killing her husband by running him over with a car at their home in Bugolobi, Kampala in January 2013.

 

A notice of appeal is a convict’s written notification to the trial court about the intention to challenge the judgment in a higher court before 14 days elapse. In this case, Uwera notified the court of her intention to challenge its judgment against her.

 

Speaking to New Vision, Uwera’s lawyer, Nsubuga Mubiru, said he would file a memorandum of appeal after receiving court proceedings. “I want the Court of Appeal to properly evaluate the evidence on record and come up with the right conclusion,” he noted.

 

According to the law, a memorandum of appeal is the set of grounds upon which a judicial examination is prayed for. It contains the grounds of objection to the decree appealed against.

 

 

 

Mubiru said the court findings contradicted the evidence on the court record, including the crime scene examination reports. He said the importance of these reports was to prove whether there was an intention to kill or not.

 

He noted that the problem with the dying declaration is that the Judge misinterpreted the act of killing to constitute murder.

 

The dying declarations Nsenga made at Paragon Hospital to his relatives before passing on include: “Uwera did not knock the gate, but me. Uwera has killed me in my own home and my car has killed me in my own compound.”

 

“What I did not understand is whether the deceased’s dying declaration meant the accused intentionally knocked him or not,” noted Mubiru.

 

 

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