Africa-Press – Uganda. A former fisherman in Kalanga District is to spend 30 years in prison after the Court of Appeal reduced his 45-year jail term which was handed to him after being found guilty of murdering fellow fisherman.
Gerald Mugerwa was in 2016 found guilty of murdering James Lusembo with the trial judge, John Eudes Keitirima asserting that the evidence from prosecution had proved his offence beyond reasonable doubt.
Mugerwa killed Lusembo in the waters of Lake Victoria near Lujjabwa fishing village in Kalangala District on June 14, 2013.
Dissatisfied with the judge’s decision, Mugerwa petitioned Court of Appeal, arguing that the judge had erred in law and fact when he ignored his defence in which he stated that there was no evidence that he had killed his colleague and that 45-year jail term was too harsh.
The appellate judges, Catherine Bamugemereire and Eva Kawuma Luswata led by the deputy Chief Justice Richard Buteere, noted that Mugerwa’s conduct in concealing what happened to Lusembo and telling deliberate lies, was hardly consistent with the conduct of a traumatised colleague of a fisherman who drowned at midnight on a turbulent lake as he had claimed in his defence.
“After a careful review of the case law and the facts at hand, we have come to the conclusion that the circumstances under which the appellant (Mugerwa) committed this horrific murder deserve a severe sentence as the murder was premeditated,” the justices held, maintaining that Mugerwa was the last person to be seen with Lusembo.
“However, we agree with counsel for the appellant that the sentence of 45 years was excessive in the given circumstances. The appellant was 27 years at the time and a first offender. As a youthful offender, the appellant deserves a sentence that will grant him an opportunity to reform. Having found the sentence of 45 years excessive, we hereby set it aside,” the judges ruled before reducing the sentence to 30 years.
Court complied with Article 23(8) of the Constitution and deducted the period of three years two months and three weeks that the appellant spent on remand and sentenced him to twenty-six years two months and one week.
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