The murder of Happy Kijjangoma, formerly the son of King Rukidi III and a Prince of Tooro kingdom sent shockwaves across the country. The damning results of a subsequent police investigation, stunned the nation by uncovering the Tooro Kingdom’s former Premier, John Ssanyu Katuramu, as the one who had hired a team of hitmen through his cousin, Alex Kwezi, to fatally shoot the late amicable prince inside a bar in Fort Portal.
The late Prince Kijjangoma and his elder sister, Princes Elizabeth Bagaya had reportedly filed a case in a Fort Portal Court, centered on mismanagement of the kingdom’s properties and reportedly cited Katuramu as one of the defendants. It was also alleged that Princess Bagaya and Prince Kijjangoma had spearheaded a move intended to remove Katuramu from the post of Omuhikirwa (Prime Minister) of Tooro Kingdom. And that, was the bad blood that prompted Katuramu to hire the hitmen who eliminated the late Prince Kijjangoma.
In one of the shocking incriminating pieces of evidence tabled by the prosecution, it was alleged that planning meetings related to the murder were held in Katuramu’s residence in Muyenga, and that after the murder, the hitmen went and hid at his Rwenkuba Farm, where he reportedly roasted a bull for them in appreciation of their unlawful services.
Upon his arrest, Katuramu, a wealthy man, hired a team of defense lawyers that comprised of some of the most expensive and sharpest criminal lawyers in town, who included a former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Macdusman Kabega. Kabega is currently representing Molly Katanga, a businesswoman undergoing a high-profile trial centered on the murder of her husband, the late Henry Katanga.
One of the hitmen suspects, Bob Swart, hired a soft-spoken and extremely humble lawyer, Edward Ddaamulira Muguluma, whom very few people gave a chance to successfully defend his client. Muguluma was a very tough defence criminal lawyer in the league of the late Henry Kayondo, even as he was a shy old man whose demeanor was just a facade that concealed his razor-sharp intelligence.
For a long time, Muguluma, who studied in Namilyango College, studied as a Barrister in London and obtained a masters degree from Belgium, was the Principal Lawyer for the Democratic Party (DP) even though majority of Ugandans never got to know about it since he was not a proud man but preferred operating silently.
Muguluma was an Attorney General in Botswana before President Yoweri Museveni personally invited him back to Uganda to conduct his law practice from his motherland. Returning to the murder case of Katuramu, his expensive lawyers did everything humanely and legally possible to convince the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court. But despite their frantic efforts, they failed to rescue their client as his fate was finally sealed by the Supreme Court.
Treated by many as a weak criminal defence lawyer, Muguluma shocked Katuramu, his expensive team of lawyers and everyone else when he expertly cross examined the prosecution witnesses, filed water tight submissions and ultimately saved his client Bob Swart from the gallows. After securing an acquittal, Muguluma got his client aside and advised him to leave for Dubai, because the police was certainly going to kill him.
Bob Swart did as counseled but clandestinely came back to the country to check on his girlfriend. Here, the police got to know of his presence. One day, the police arrested Bob Swart’s girlfriend and used her to trick his boyfriend that she had a big problem and urgently wanted to meet him. Bob Swart, who loved expensive and fast motorbikes, jumped on his motorcycle and sped off to somewhere in Nakulabye to meet her girlfriend whom, he believed that actually had a pressing problem. Where he expected to meet his girlfriend, Bob Swart was instead met by a hail of bullets that tragically cut him down.
Ironically, Bob Swart did not live long enough to treat his dependable lawyer during the time of his illness, nor was able to burry him when he finally died. President Museveni subsequently pardoned Katuramu after reconciling with the relatives of the late Prince Kijjangoma and he has since laid low like an envelope.
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