The High Court in Kampala has received new evidence in the murder trial of Susan Magara, a 28-year-old daughter of businessman John Magara who was kidnapped on February 7, 2018 and later murdered.
The new piece of evidence that has been tabled in court includes photographs taken at the scene of the crime, a sketch map, and blood-stained envelopes recovered from one of the suspect’s houses.
Inspector of Police Robert Icoot, the prosecution witness, tabled the evidential documents in court during his testimony in the case on Wednesday. High Court Judge Alex Ajiji is presiding over the murder trial.
Icoot said they recovered the two blood-stained envelopes during a search at the rented premises of Amir Ismail Bukenya.
Bukenya is among the nine people standing trial over the kidnapping and the gruesome murder of Magara on February 7, 2018.
Other accused persons are Abbas Musa Buvumbo, Abubaker Kyewolwa, Hajarah Nakandi, Yusuf Lubega, Hussein Wasswa, Hassan Kato-Miiro, Muzamir Ssali, and Mahad Kisalita, the former imam of the Usafi makeshift mosque in Mengo-Kisenyi, Kampala.
Icoot further told court that they recovered Magara’s body on February 27, 2018 at Kitiko, Kigo in Wakiso district along the Munyonyo-Kajjansi express highway.
He said Magara’s body was dressed in a black t-shirt and a black pair of trousers with two amputated fingers.
Before the detective concluded his testimony, two of the accused persons requested an adjournment, saying they were unwell. This prompted the judge to adjourn the matter to Thursday, September 12, 2024.
Susan Magara was kidnapped on February 7, 2018, along Kabaka Anjagala road in Mengo city suburbs as she drove back to her Lungujja home about three kilometres away.
Her kidnappers then contacted the family and demanded $1 million (about Rs. 3.65 billion) before they could release her.
Despite the family having delivered $200,000 (about shillings 700 million) to the kidnappers, she was murdered, and three weeks later her body was recovered from Kigo in Wakiso district on August 27, 2018, where it had been dumped.
Before her gruesome and barbaric murder, the kidnappers sent a bag containing a flash disc with a short video as Magara pleaded to her father to pay the ransom. The bag also contained two of her chopped-off fingers.
The allegations
The prosecution alleges that the accused and others still at large on February 7, 2018, kidnapped Susan with the intent to procure a ransom from her liberation from the danger of being murdered.
The indictment indicates that Susan was a victim of a ransom scheme hatched by Yakub Byensi, a former combatant with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels who hails from Bunyoro like Susan, and that he was known to her family as well as Lubega, who used to work in Container Village with Magara’s mother. Byensi is still at large.
Armed with insider information, the suspects, according to the prosecution, started trailing Susan until they kidnapped her in Lungujja on her way home.
