Judge Guides As ‘Girlfriend’ Insists Being Called ‘Wife’ to Suspect in UCC Telecom Equipment Theft Trial at Makindye

By Mulengera Reporters

On Monday, 37-year-old Jessica Takwemazayo was shocked to be assured by none other Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu that the 40-year-old Hamdan Mukwaya, with whom she has been cohabiting or staying at their Seguku home, is something else to her, and not husband.

She had come as one of the defence witnesses to help placate telecom engineer Hamdan Mukwaya, with whom they have a 10-year-old daughter.

A former telecom engineer working with Airtel Uganda, Mukwaya has for the last two years been on remand at Luzira where he was sent after the state preferred telecom infrastructure and equipment vandalism and theft charges against him. The equipment was at the telecom mast site located at Entebbe market in Entebbe Municipality and it belonged to American Tower Corporation (ATC).

The alleged offence was committed in March 2023. And Hamdan Mukwaya is charged with his best friend and fellow engineer Charles Kasirye and others. They are being tried at the Makindye-based Utilities, Standards & Wildlife Court headed by Her Worship Gladys Kamasanyu.

The Magistrate recently ruled that the prosecution lawyers from Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) had established a prima farcie case, implying that the accused persons have a case to answer.

Case to answer, once established, means that the accused persons have to start on their defence and you do this by calling in witnesses to give evidence aimed at diminishing your criminal liability.

So, having opted for the defence alibi (namely that Mukwaya wasn’t anywhere near the Entebbe site or crime scene on the day the alleged crime was committed), the defence legal team brought Ms Takwemazayo to help demonstrate or bring out the fact that he actually was at their home in Seguku and not anywhere near the crime scene at Entebbe.

Her evidence was that, as of March 2023, Mukwaya was always at their home in Seguku most of the time because he was broke and jobless, having been fired from his Airtel job in January that same year. That the only other time he was not home was when he would go to a nearby mosque for prayers both in the morning and evening.

As is always the procedure, the defence lawyer began by leading Takwemazayo into introducing herself and how she is exactly related to Mukwaya, the accused person, in whose defence she had come to give evidence. “He is my husband and we have one child together,” instantly answered Takwemazayo who moments earlier had introduced herself as a jobless house wife.

The Magistrate asked whether they had a marriage certificate together or have ever engaged in any traditional ceremony towards solemnization of their marriage (for her to qualify to tell Court that she is a house wife). The witness answered “no” but insisted “he is my husband because we even have a child together and have been sleeping together at his house in Seguku,” defensively erupted Takwemazayo.

On realizing she wasn’t getting what she was being told, the Magistrate directly spoke to the defence lawyer who was leading Takwemazayo. “Counsel you and I know why what she is insisting on isn’t true. Can we put that right by setting the record straight before we go very far into her evidence?” Kamasanyu said as the defence Counsel concurred.

The defence lawyer guided that Takwemazayo (who seemed totally shocked and disturbed on being told that she legally isn’t Eng Mukwaya’s wife and that there is no marriage for her to talk about) accepts merely being referred as Mukwaya’s “good friend” and not wife.

“Maybe let’s have the record show that you are a mother of his child,” Kamasanyu guided as Takwemazayo descended into more confusion and shock.

She insisted he is her man (and she has the right to introduce herself as his wife regardless of what the Magistrate and defence Counsel were saying) but the Court, out of duty, assured her there is no way that could he captured on the record because what exists between them is merely a “special friendship” and not a marriage.

Apparently, because the other woman (who used to reside in Mukwaya’s other home at Bwebajja) became hopeless, deserted him and went abroad for kyeyo on seeing the man remaining jobless for all that while, Takwemazayo must have concluded that the man was now hers and hers alone.

The ever face-masking Eng Mukwaya, who every Monday and Tuesday is driven from Luzira to the Makindye Court to stand trial in the more than 5 theft and vandalism cases he is facing, helplessly looked on from the dock where he was made to stand as the mother of his child struggled to defend him while dealing with the bitter reality that she doesn’t qualify to be called his wife, even after staying and sleeping with him at the Seguku home for now 12 years.

Even after Court, Jessica Takwemazayo who hails from Busoga and is a Catholic, remained broken and emotionally disrupted. She sat somewhere in the waiting shelter outside the Court room and pensively looked on as two elderly men, fit to be Mukwaya’s parents, comforted her.

In the end, she walked out of the Court gate and returned home, as prison warders led the hand-cuffed Eng Hamdan Mukwaya back to the holding cell inside the Court compound. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).