By Mulengera Reporters
During the Monday 12th January court session, defence lawyer Malik Mboowa announced to the Utilities Court session presided over by Her Worship Gladys Kamasanyu that he was pulling out to enable the two accused persons (his clients Engineers Ahmad Mukwaya and Charles Kasirye) to get new lawyers to defend them because they had developed irreconcilable differences.
Malik Mboowa has been the two telecom engineers’ defence lawyer in the three-telecom equipment vandalism and theft cases they are being tried upon in Kamasanyu’s Court.
The complainant is American Towers Corporation (ATC), which claims that the duo vandalised and stole their telecom equipment from their telecom tower masts sites situated at Buloba/Bulaga hill in Wakiso district, Entebbe and Waina hill in Busoga’s Luuka district.
Each of these have a distinct criminal case file under which the two engineers are being prosecuted at the Makindye Court by a team of state prosecutors from UCC, led by Dr. Abdul Salaam Waiswa.
A few weeks ago, the two engineers (who have been on remand at Luzira for more than a year now) realized that successfully defending themselves on the Bulaga/Wakiso file was going to be next to impossible after Lawrence Letti, their co-accused, felt alienated and turned against them.
Letti approached the UCC state prosecutors and indicated readiness to give evidence against his co-accused. He pleaded guilty and is now ready to give evidence helping prosecution to place the two engineers onto the crime scene. Court has since allowed this to happen by granting the application by UCC prosecutors. It was already a hard case for the defence team especially after UCC prosecutors adduced plenty of evidence. Letti’s U-turn is going to make the case even more complicated.
This caused the accused persons to consult their lawyer Malik Mboowa with whom they concurred that there was need to enter a plea-bargaining deal and plead guilty. The Magistrate said fine and the two engineers had a session dedicated for them to plead guilty. But towards the end of that day’s session, disagreements cropped up relating to the jail term the duo was to serve.
Whereas the UCC lawyers had proposed 36 months (basically three years as their minimum after they had consulted all stakeholders involved on their side), the duo objected preferring 24 months on grounds that they had already served more than a year on remand.
The prosecution team objected to this on grounds that the remand was in relation to the other two files of Waina and Entebbe. For Bulaga, the accused persons had secured bail but were unable to walk out of jail because they were on remand for the other two cases. Whereas UCC lawyers insisted that the duo was on bail for Bulaga (and not on remand), the two engineers sharply disagreed.
Their defence lawyer Mboowa felt the UCC offer made sense, a thing which discomforted some of the two troubled engineers’ close relatives.
And during the Monday 12th January session, H/W Kamasanyu made it clear she had given the two engineers more than enough time but she was frustrated with the fact that they had unhelpfully remained indecisive yet the UCC prosecutors are in a buoyant mood because they believe they have a good case to pin the two engineers and they have all along been more than prepared to bring and lead more witnesses.
Counsel Malik Mboowa told Court on Monday that he was pulling out of the Bulaga defence job to enable the accused persons get another lawyer. He is only remaining on the other two cases of Entebbe and Waina. The Magistrate took note of all this and asked the two engineers to quickly get another lawyer so that on Tuesday, as Lawrence Letti testifies and gives evidence against them, they are able to have effective legal representation.
The two engineers, thick-skinned as always, seemed shocked at defence lawyer Malik Mbowa’s decision to quit. They assured Court that they are going to get another lawyer for the Bulaga case as Mboowa carries on with the other two cases of Entebbe and Waina. The Magistrate wished them luck, while directing the UCC prosecutors to come back on Tuesday 13th January prepared to carry on, leading their next witness. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
