Licking Own Heave: Hope for Justice as DPP Jane Frances Abodo Revisits her Decision to Pardon Basajjabalaba

We, here at the Investigator, have persistently warned of the presence of a notoriously huge elephant roaming dangerously inside there in the DPP’s all-important office. Yet, and whereas a good number of Ugandans and leaders are aware of the fact, no one has been taking time off to join us in the patriotic cause of fixing the huge problem at hand.

Let’s come clean. We ourselves have an axe to grind with the all-powerful madam Jane Frances Abodo. TheUganda’s current Director for Public Prosecution (DPP) she is. Frankly speaking, Abodo weilds enormous sweeping powers which tempts her to use to curtail the wheels of justice as, and when she has desired.Making use of those uncontrolled powers, for instance, that Lady Justice would sweep under the carpet, the criminal case we had filed against businessman Sudhir Ruparelia. In that case, we were correctly accusing Sudhir of hiring hackers who messed up our media website and our individual social media accounts.

We had spent quite a great deal of time and resources to get the culprit hackers. The mercenaries would positively tell the detectives at Kibuli-premised Crime Investigations Directorate (CID) headquarters how they had been, as a matter-of-fact, paid by Sudhir through his sidekick, Ussa Segawa, to mess us up. Everything, accordingly, had been set for the hackers to have their day in court for purposes of pinning Sudhir and his protege, Segawa who, had also confessed in affirmative.

But, alas! the police investigators, having passed over the file to the DPP for her to sanction, the Lady Justicesecretly closed it without any kind of recourse to us. We didn’t lose heart. We continued to make noise about the presence of a huge elephant inside there in the DPP’s office. We persisted and still do, even much as the power-that-be continue to turn a blind eye to our red flag in this regard. As luck would have it, the DPP has since been caught pants down and just exactly at her usual monkey tricks.

This time round, Abodo had thankfully, defied both the President and the Constitutional Court. This, by secretly sweeping under the carpet, the case file involving Hajj Hassan Basajjabalaba (HABA) and his brother, Muzamiru Basajjabalaba, but which, both the President the Court had directed her to prosecute. This exactly is what she also did in our case. Consider that our case involved a wealthy man known as Sudhir Ruparelia. Think also about the fact that the DPP took a huge risk akin to biting the bullet itself by secretly closing the file of HABA, another wealthy man.

You can now choose to agree or disagree with singer Ronald Mayinja’s argument that justice in Uganda is a commodity readily available for sale to the highest bidder. But thanks to the dare-devil counsel, Isaac Semakadde of the Legal Brain Trust. The DPP has since been forced to rescind her dubious acquittal of the two brothers. The details of this matter are entailed in our story titled; “DPP Defies Museveni and Court, Secretly Pardons Basajja Balaba of Serious Forgery and Tax Evasion Charges.”Both the President and the Constitutional court had held that the two siblings had to stand trial. This position, the two brothers having allegedly forged their way into obtaining a whopping UGX142Bn from the government coffers.

They had supposedly disguised such payments as compensation which was due to them on account of having been removed from the management of Owino and Nakasero public markets, plus the City Abattoir. The two men are said to have forged the said documents in the name of a court consent judgement where the Attorney General was committing the government to clear the fake payments. Done with the forgeries, the two men are believed to have now gone ahead and used the Finance Minister of the day, Hajjat Syda Bbumba to have the funds paid out to them from the government treasury.

For accepting to be used by Basajja and his sibling, the Attorney General of the day, Prof Khiddu Makubuya and the Finance Minister, Syda Bbumba, would end up paying a huge price. The riled President omitted them in the subsequent cabinet lineup. The Basajjas were subsequently arraigned before the courts to answer for their suspected follies. Before then, the President had gone on to duly write a letter where he had unambiguously stated how he had never, at any one time, approved the impugned compensation as Basajja and his two government officials had made it appear as if he had actually done.

Shortly after being arraigned before the courts, Haba and his brother would move to the Constitutional Court to subject to test the constitutionality of their trial. The two would lose the citation at the constitutional court following which the justices thereof categorically told the DPP to continue with the trial of the two suspects. Yet,by a secret letter written in October this year, the DPP would secretly and contemptously so, go ahead to acquit the two suspects of anything. But being a lawyer herself, Abodo would have known better than to hold in contempt, the orders from the appointing authority plus the courts of law.

Such contemptuous decision by the DPP would rile counsel Ssemakadde beyond measure. No sooner had he learned of such miscarriage of justice than the dreadlocked legal brain stepped out with his gun blazing. The incensed renowned legal activist gave the DPP just only three days to rescind the highly offensive decision or else be ready to join HABA in the dock for having disobeyed the lawful orders from the President and the country`s Courts of law.

Panickingly and to the relief of the justice-minded humanity, the DPP would rescind her dubious decision. We have the evidence to this revisited stance. This new move means, Basajjabalaba and his brother are set to have a day in court to answer for their deeds. But hold on there, there were some falsehoods in the DPP’s new decision which we shall be happy to expose next time, and after you have taken the much needed breather.

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Stephen Kasozi Muwambi: Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]