Buganda Road Court on Monday acquitted lawyer and activist Andrew Karamagi of charges of being a public nuisance and causing annoyance to the then government’s chief legal adviser.
Karamagi has been battling the charges since January 31, 2014, when he grabbed a written speech from former Attorney General, not the Late Peter Nyombi at the New Law Year celebrations.
He was thereby arrested and charged with Karamagi being a nuisance in February 2014 – a charge that Magistrate Joan Aciro quashed saying “the common annoyance against Nyombi, as attributed to in evidence from prosecution witnesses was not reflected by in the charges.”
“…in the circumstances, I dismiss the case and acquit accused. The prosecution did not prescribe anything to show that it was forbidden to remove a speech from any person on that day. Nothing from prosecution evidence showed that the accused’s non-violent act was unlawful or unauthorized,” the magistrate ruled.
According to Karamagi, the late Nyombi made some partisan utterances which were uncalled for.
The magistrate held that the prosecution could not prove that the public was annoyed by Karamagi’s actions.