By Mulengera Reporters
Under Criminal Case No. 350 of 2023, two telecom engineers Charles Kasirye and Amdan Mukwaya have since April 2023 been battling telecom equipment vandalism and theft charges the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) preferred against them.
Briefly, the details of the case are that on 23rd March 2023, the duo gained unauthorized access to the American Towers Corporation (ATC)-owned telecom mast shelter at Bulaga hill Bira Buloba along Mityana Road in Wakiso district. While there, the two engineers, who subsequently breached and tampered with the site, stole 16 lithium batteries belonging to ATC and valued at a total of Shs216m.
In their company was a one Lawrence Letti, a security guard they knew and worked well with in their previous employment while working as telecom engineers under Airtel Uganda.
During the trial in September this very year, UCC lawyers who are prosecuting the case on behalf of the Ugandan state, in order to enable ATC (the complainant or victim) to get justice, brought several witnesses- including an old man who happened to be the security guard on duty guarding the tower at Bulaga that fateful afternoon.
The security guard told Court, presided over by Chief Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu who heads the Makindye-based Utilities, Standards and Wildlife Court, that the grey Nissan Terrano (UAQ 740U) pulled up at the site he was guarding. And in it, were three men.
The security guard believed these were the usual ATC engineers who frequently come around to do maintenance checks to ensure that everything is okay, up and running. He couldn’t know the engineers personally or specifically because, as he told Court in his evidence-in-chief for prosecution, the engineers ATC sends to any of its 5,000 such sites keep changing the way security guards are also rotated.
It never crossed his mind that these were thieves. They seemed confident, which impressed it on him that these must be genuine engineers from ATC or any of the contracted sub contractors.
It was Letti who jumped out of the Nissan Terrano and walked over to the tree shed, outside the tower shelter, where the security guard was seated sheltering against the mid-morning sunshine. He deceptively told him he was having severe headache and begged to be directed to the nearest clinic or pharmacy to at least buy pain killers. Saying he hadn’t understood the directions, Letti convinced and got the reluctant security guard to escort him to the clinic/pharmacy which was about 1km away.
In his absence, the two engineers who remained behind seated in the grey Nissan Terrano quickly cut the shelter protecting the tower and gained access to the cabins where the lithium batteries were being kept. With Letti saying he was feeling better after medicating at the clinic, the security guard opted to run back up the hill to his station, only to find the Terrano occupants slopping down the hill, ostensibly after doing the routine maintenance on the site, which he believed is what they had come to do.
By some instinct, the guard became suspicious and wrote down the number of the Terrano that was descending down the hill. It had just bypassed him. Upon reaching back the mast, his fears were confirmed when he realized the batteries had indeed been taken. He rang his supervisors who quickly shared the number plate with Police’s CCTV camera control centre at Natete. That’s how the tracking started resulting into the two engineers’ apprehension/arrest days later.
When he ran back to the clinic, the guard was told that Letti had all of a sudden gotten well and jumped into the Terrano and went back in the direction of Kampala with the two engineers. In the end, Letti and the two engineers got arrested and that’s how the UCC prosecution of them commenced almost two years ago.
The day the security guard gave his evidence (this last September), insisting that Letti is the man he saw at Bulaga and proceeded to identify him during suspect identification parade at Wandegeya Police Division, Letti (who is A3 on that file) got cowed, felt overwhelmed and approached the state prosecutors from UCC; making it clear he wanted to enter a plea-bargain deal.
He indicated that he wanted to plead guilty in order to save court’s time. He also expressed readiness to become a state witness, something Gladys Kamasanyu, the trial Magistrate, signalled readiness to accept. Kamasanyu, realizing this U-turn by Letti was bad news for his co-accused (Kasirye & Mukwaya with whom they continue to be remanded in Luzira), pleaded with the two telecom engineers not to leverage their deep pockets to harm him from inside Luzira prisons.
MAJOR BREAK THROUGH FOR STATE:
Fast forward, in the weeks that followed, state prosecutors from UCC, ably led by Dr. Abdul Salaam Waiswa, managed to establish contact with the car rental businessman from whom the Nissan Terrano, used to transport the stolen lithium batteries, was hired.
The vehicle had been impounded by Police, using CCTV surveillance, as it struggled through the Kireka-Bweyogerere jam. This was after it allegedly had been used by the two telecom engineers to commit similar lithium batteries’ theft offences at the Waira mast site in Luuka district and another one in Entebbe.
The eventual impounding of the vehicle, which was preceded by careful review of CCTV footage, enabled UCC-aided investigators to finally get hold of Mukwaya and Kasirye. They were processed through the interrogation and statement-recording system and eventually got arraigned at the Makindye Court, where they face three criminal files (deriving from three separate vandalism incidents at Entebbe, Bulaga and Waira in Luuka district).
Throughout trial, the two engineers had denied knowledge of the impugned vehicle and this had complicated work for state prosecutors from UCC. To link them to the vehicle and subsequently be able to prove their case, the UCC prosecutors needed evidence, which could only be given by the owner from whom it was leased. Gratefully, since the beginning of the trial, the vehicle has been parked in the compound of Makindye Court (as an exhibit).
When the UCC prosecutors recently established contact with the owner of the vehicle and informed Court that he was their next witness, the two engineers, who for years used to hire the same vehicle from him, knew the end had come. Their already bad case was going to become even worse. They panicked and, through their lawyer Malik Mboowa, all of a sudden indicated to the prosecution and Court that they are ready to plead guilty and bring the trial to an end.
This would pave way for the trial Magistrate to sentence them (to no less than 3 years) so that they remain with the other two cases (of Waira and Entebbe) which they believe are easier to defend. A plea-bargaining agreement was entered into and signed for dissemination to the Court. This was dully communicated to the trial Magistrate during the Friday 12th December session at Makindye.
All said and done, the voluntary cracking of the two engineers was great success for the state prosecutors from UCC at the time the Commission (their employer) is determined to use the law and other enforcement mechanisms to make vandalism and theft of telecommunications infrastructure and equipment risky business.
Vandalism has lately been rampant and thereby causing the American Tower Corporation (ATC), which has 5,000 such towers/masts across the country, to incur colossal financial loss.
Yet that isn’t all. Vandalism also impacts banks and the telecom companies which depend on such mast sites to maintain high quality services (24/7) for their customers scattered across the country in their millions. Vandalism also diminishes tax revenues realizable by government from telecom sector transactions and services provision. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
