48-year-old policeman sentenced to 50 years in prison
During the court session on May 7, 2024, Judge Mutonyi said she was convinced that the cop who was sharing a house with the parents of the minor, indeed murdered her.
The High Court in Kampala has sentenced a 48-year-old policeman, Emmanuel Abura to 50 years imprisonment, for strangling to death a nine-year-old child of his fellow policeman in a shared house in Naalya housing estate on November 6, 2021.
According to the trial judge, Ms Margaret Mutonyi, IP Abura is “an animal dressed in human skin that needs to be kept away from the public.”
During the court session on May 7, 2024, Judge Mutonyi said she was convinced that the cop who was sharing a house with the parents of the minor, indeed murdered her.
“Prosecution evidence put the accused (IP Abura) at the scene of crime much as he attempted to lie to court that he was away at a bar shortly after lunch. His alibi was destroyed by his police statement that was recorded shortly after the incident. His conduct was not the conduct of an innocent person,” she said.
She added: “In view of the fact that there was no stranger in the premises and the accused was seen leaving home by the parents of the deceased only to find their child strangled and hanged on a nail with the legs touching the ground, there was no other assailant other than the accused who meticulously killed the child and threw the keys through the broken louvres.”
Justice Mutonyi, thereafter, ruled that Abura was guilty of the offence of murder contrary to sections 188 and 189 of the Penal Code Act as charged and convicted him accordingly as provided under Section 83 of the Trial on Indictment Act.
The name of the deceased has been withheld because she was a minor.
Justice Mutonyi, however, ruled out the narrative that the victim could have committed suicide and observed that it is common knowledge that for a person to die as a result of hanging, the body must be suspended, which was not the case in this particular death.
