High Court had sentenced Pine car bond owner Muhammad Ssebuwufu and six others to 40 years in jail, for the murder of a businesswoman Donna Katushabe.
She was killed after failing to settle a debt from a car she purchased amounting to nine (9) million shillings’.
High Court Judge, Flavia Anguwen Ssennoga said that this will serve as a warning to the convicts and other people out there wishing to do this same act of taking the law in their own hands.
The judgement followed contested submissions from both prosecution and defence lawyers on what the sentence should be.
Muhammad Ssebuwufu and six others were also sentenced to 30 years for kidnap and 20 for aggravated Robbery. Stephen Lwanga was sentenced to a maximum of seven (7) years in jail because he drove Katushabe’s body from Pine car bond to the Central Police Station before she died on the way to the hospital.
In her verdict, judge Ssennoga said most of the mitigating factors were downplayed by the the way the group that killed Katushabe treated her life after torturing her the whole day.
Prior to the sentence, the prosecution had asked Court to pass a maximum sentence of death to the group, but it was objected by the defence team who asked Court to be lenient and pass
a short jail term to the convicts.
The prosecution urged that Court should pass a maximum sentence of death since the act was planned.
However, defence lawyer challenged prosecution saying that Court should not issue death the sentence in the spirit of an eye for an eye but the benchmark of the law.
In their argument, they said that Muhammad Ssebuwufu should be given a short term sentence because he is a father of seven and runs a business empire employing over 500 people who will turn jobless if the empire is miss-handled in his absence.
Last week the group was found guilty for driving Katushabe from her home in Bwebajja to Pine car bond, where she was tortured for a whole day before she died on the 15 of October 2015.
The convicts were driven away to Luzira Maximum Prison to start their sentence; however, their lawyers have 14 days to file their appeal after the sentence.
Defence lawyer, Evans Ochieng said they are not convinced with the sentence and vowed to file an appeal against the judgement.
“We are not satisfied! we told her we are not satisfied and we will be finding the necessary papers to do the appeal process,” Ochieng said.
