By Mulengera Reporters
On Tuesday 11th August (which is next week), Quarish Ssegirinya aka Yasin Lubowa, the 32-year-old Kisekka market mechanic who has been on remand since May 2025, will return to the Makindye-based Standards & Utilities Court to know how many years he will be spending in prison.
This comes after the Monday 3rd August afternoon court session during which the trial Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu found him guilty of criminal trespass, vandalism and theft of telecom equipment belonging to American Tower Corporation (ATC). Created under the Penal Code Act and the Uganda Communications Act, the offences attract a maximum custodial sentence of 10 years.
A team of state prosecutors from UCC had since May last year been bringing and leading witnesses to corroborate their case that on the night of 11th May 2025, Quarish Ssegirinya is the man who was caught red handed committing the impugned wrongful acts at the ATC tower/mast site located on Namakonkome hill outside Matuga town, off the Kampala-Bombo highway.
The Magistrate agreed with the prosecution’s witness that Quarish is the man who was caught red handed past midnight of that same day busy vandalizing the generator house; the very damaging activity which culminated into him having access to the generator which ATC was relying upon to power up and keep the entire site running.
Upon vandalizing the generator, Quarish (who served previous jail term for committing similar offences up to mid-2024) collected the different pieces and packed them into a sack. He was preparing to load them onto a motorcycle and ride away at the time the security guards, moving on a routine patrol vehicle, stormed the site. He tried to flee but he was unsuccessful.
He intended to sell the vandalized generator parts as scrap since such is lucrative business around Kisekka market, where this Kibuye resident, and father of three, works from.
The generator parts whose vandalism and theft Quarish was convicted of included: the generator water pump, pulley generator radiator, generator radiator fun, generator guard, generator belt, fuel injector pump, fuel injector lines, the DC charging alternator, the oil dip stick, the lift pump horse, the engine horse pipes and the air cleaner holder etc.
The unrepresented convict had at some point signaled readiness to plead guilty after the prosecution evidence seemed overwhelming but he kept shifting goal posts between pleading guilty and maintaining his not guilty plea.
Late last year, the Magistrate found that he had a case to answer and called upon Quarish, who had been busy humiliating and bullying state witnesses during cross examination, to begin defending himself.
Having totally abandoned the idea of pleading guilty, Quarish centered his defense on seeking to implicate officials of the complainant company in the hope that this would get him somewhere. But his story didn’t add up.
During the Monday court session, he seemed crashed and cried to the Magistrate to allow him one more chance to reexamine the file and make peace with the state prosecutors but the Magistrate told him it was too late, especially after the conviction had been proclaimed. He was told him how appealing to the High Court against the conviction was now his only option.
He became cracked and said he was sorry about what he did and apologized to the UCC lawyers for having wasted their time for all these months trying to build up his ill-fated defense, which didn’t lead him anywhere.
When called upon to submit on his mitigation factors ahead of the sentencing next Tuesday, Quarish implored the Magistrate to sentence him leniently because he is a father of three infants who are going to endure suffering, including continuing to miss school in his absence.
Saying he had been misled, Quarish cried out even more calling on the Magistrate to spare him on grounds that he has learnt from his mistakes and won’t commit the crime again. He admitted he was a repeat offender doing exactly the same thing and promised never to do it again.
“Your Worship I’m even willing to sign up to a written commitment that I will never appear before any court in Uganda again, having learnt my lesson. I’m also here to assure court that I’m quitting this job of being a mechanic because it seems to be the one tempting me. It’s indeed very tempting,” said the masked Quarish, who also claimed he had engaged himself in all this crime partly because of ignorance. That he didn’t fully know the implications of his crime enterprise.
UCC LAWYERS MAKE THEIR CASE:
Called upon to run through the aggravating factors, the prosecution lawyers demanded for the maximum custodial sentence of 10 years in Luzira because Quarish was a habitual offender who was also unremorseful at the same time.
They referred to his malicious attempt to implicate some of the state witnesses, falsely claiming they were his accomplices well knowing all this was untrue. Dr. Abdul Salaam Waiswa, leading the state prosecutors from UCC, asserted that this was all indicative of a convict who was unremorseful.
Besides the 10 years, which is the maximum the relevant legal provisions prescribe, Dr. Waiswa also implored Court to impose a compensatory fine of Shs8.54m (being the consolidated cost of the generator parts that were stolen/vandalized) and another Shs36m (being the statutory fines the complainant/victim ATC was compelled to pay to the telecom companies to pay as a result of the business that was lost as a result of the communication network disruptions that resulted from the impugned vandalism acts).
The state prosecutors also called on court to give Quarish strictly the custodial sentence of 10 years in prison without the option of paying a fine. That this is the only way he will learn and reform, while serving as a deterrent example for other equally energetic and knowledgeable young men, who choose to use their capabilities to destroy, as opposed to building, Uganda.
The state lawyers asserted that clearly being subjected to prolonged custodial sentence is the only way Quarish can meaningfully reflect and learn never to commit such acts of vandalism, which were demonstrated to court to be costly and rampant in contemporary Uganda.
It was also demonstrated through the prosecution evidence that Quarish’s absence (following his arrested on 12th May 2025) had made the complainant’s business operations safer by causing cases of generator-related vandalism to generally go down. Hence the need to keep him away in order to protect the ATC business and also the members of the Ugandan general public who are entitled to enjoying communication services which are free from vandalism-induced network disruptions.
During trial, the prosecution had brought witnesses to Court whose evidence demonstrated a direct relationship between high prevalence of vandalism incidences and gang leader Quarish being free and at large.
The state prosecutors implored the Magistrate to make reference to such compelling and well-illustrated evidence while determining the appropriate sentencing for Quarish. That there is need to hand down the maximum sentence so that Quarish gets to learn through experience that “stealing isn’t a sustainable way of life.”
It was also submitted that the habitual offender Quarish clearly premeditated his offences and committed them well knowing the consequences the same would cause on ATC’s business and the public’s ability to enjoy disruption-free communication services.
The proposed order requiring Quarish to compensate the victim or complainant with money besides serving the 10-year custodial sentence at Luzira, was justified by state lawyers on grounds that in his own submissions to court during trial, the convict had personally bragged about generator-related vandalism being lucrative business to the extent that he and his gang members every month make an average of between Shs20m and Shs30m.
The prosecution lawyers asserted that this is indicative that the convict is in position to raise the money to compensate the victims of his intentional and well premeditated actions.
The Magistrate was also called upon to consider proclaiming the appropriate orders on how the state can deal with the abandoned unclaimed motorcycle which was recovered from the Namakonkome scene of crime.
Quarish denied being its owner yet UCC’s efforts to locate anyone else haven’t yielded. The motorcycle is currently being kept at Buwambo police near Matuga/Namakonkome and the state lawyers want the Magistrate to guide on how the unclaimed motorcycle should be dealt with. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
