Africa-Press – Uganda. Mengo Chief Magistrate’s Court was a scene of crime yesterday after police cordoned off the area to carry out investigations into a burglary.
The break-in happened on Tuesday night.
In a statement issued during the course of the day, the police claimed the thugs first tampered with the CCTV cameras of the court before gaining access through the backdoor to the Small Claims Procedure section.
The other sections of the court that the thugs gained access to include the chambers of Grade One Magistrate Joanita Mwanika, the computer office, court registry, and the cash office.
Sources, who preferred anonymity, claimed the thugs made off with a system server, although it was not clear whether money was stolen.
The sources added that at the time of the break-in, there were two police counter terrorism guards.
“Our police at Old Kampala are investigating the matter of office break-in and theft at court, but the CCTV cameras at the scene of crime were tampered with,” the Kampala Metropolitan deputy police spokesperson, Mr Luke Owoyesigyire, said.
He explained that when the police received information about the incident, they rushed to the scene, processed it and documented it and that by press time, efforts were underway to have the cameras fixed by a team of police ICT experts.
“No arrests have been made and we shall provide you with more details as soon as they are available. Efforts are on to identify the perpetrators behind this criminal act,” Mr Owoyesigyire said.
The Judiciary spokesperson, Mr Jamson Karemani, could not tell what had been stolen by press time last evening.
“We are yet to establish the documents that were stolen, but I can confirm that some things were taken,” he said.
Mr Karemani added that the incident paralysed work at court. He said prison warders who had brought suspects for trial early morning got stranded.
Mr Emmanuel Bunya, the communications officer at the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, said they had brought some suspects for plea taking on different offences such as impersonation, forgery and uttering of false documents, but the entire process was put on halt.
The break-in comes barely two months after the Judiciary received 77,472 historical files dating more than 100 years ago from the archives of Mengo Chief Magistrates Court.
Some of the files that were to be digitalised included the original documents of counties under the Buganda Kingdom, parishes and sub-county courts. The content that dates back to 1900 details the colonial period and district courts of Mengo.
Others included 10 land titles signed off by Stanislaus Mugwanya, who also signed the 1900 Buganda Agreement, among other valuable documents.
The police crime report released this year showed that a total of 2,041 cases of house breaking-ins/office break-in were reported in 2020 compared to 3,156 reported in 2019, giving a 35.3 percent decrease.
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