The defence team in the defamation case where 9 youths are accused of fabricating evidence of sodomy, giving false information to police, and criminal trespass on Rubaga Miracle Centre has accused its intended witness of being hostile and opted to abandon him.
The failure to present the would-be 11th witness, a transcriber and translator from Makerere University, has now compelled the defence to close its case with 10 witnesses.
During the hearing of the defence case, the lawyers sought to rely on a transcribed and translated report of a video and two audio recordings done by UBC.
However, the State, represented by Chief State Attorney Jonathan Muwaganya, objected, insisting that, for purposes of fairness, the defence should be compelled to present the earlier disclosed witness from Makerere University’s School of Languages.
Trial Magistrate Adams Byarugaba upheld the Prosecution’s objection in a ruling delivered on Monday 5th October, 2026 and dismissed the defence’s attempt to introduce new evidence and a new witness from UBC to substitute the witness from Makerere University whom they had disclosed at the commencement of their defense case.
The Magistrate then went ahead to issue witness summons to compel the transcriber/translator from Makerere University to appear in court today and testify.
However, when the case came up this morning, the defense team lead by Bernard Mugenyi informed court that court summons was served on the coordinator of school of languages of Makerere University and that as defense counsel they had also attempted to call the witness on phone but the calls have gone unanswered.
That instead, the witness had delegated Ms. Fatima Mbabazi, a business liaison officer at Makerere University’s School of Languages and College of Education and External Studies.
But according to defence lawyer Bernard Mugenyi, the defense upon interacting with Ms. Fatima Mbabazi realized that she was not a transcriber nor a custodian of official documents at Makerere University and that she was not employed at the Makerere University as a translator and transcriber by the time the reports were done. He therefore concluded that they could not lead her as a witness since is not competent.
“We are now suspicious about the witness from Makerere University and feel he may be deliberately influenced to stay away from the case,” Mugenyi told court.
“In light of that, we no longer have faith that this witness will be truthful and not turn out to be hostile,” Mugenyi added.
He subsequently informed court that the defence had opted to close its case with 10 witnesses and asked for timelines within which the parties would file written submissions.
However, Muwaganya submitted that the reasons given by the defense team that their witness would turn hostile are speculative. He further submitted it could not be true that the coordinator of the school is not picking his calls yet at the same time assigning Ms. Fatima Mbabazi to represent him in court.
At that point, the court inquired from Ms. Fatima Mbabazi to explain the whereabouts of the coordinator. In her response, she revealed that the coordinator had not been in office since Monday and that his phone has been out of reach. She also clarified that she only came to court as the person who has been linking the coordinator and the defense lawyers confirming that her school coordinator had previously come to testify in court.
Prosecution further submitted that on May 2, 2025, the defence had disclosed a flash disk containing a video and two audio recordings, together with the transcriptions and translations of the recordings. That in July 2025, the defense disclosed other three videos and their corresponding transcriptions and translations. That the reports were authored by different individuals as per the initials indicated on them. He therefore wondered why the defense cannot call any of the authors to testify in court.
The prosecution also added that “For purposes of truth-finding, we had considered asking court to compel the language transcribers to appear and testify, but we decided to respect the defence’s choice of closing its case,”
The court accordingly adjourned the case to December 9, 2026 for oral highlights by the parties after filing their respective final submissions and thereafter the court will announce the judgment date.
