The High Court in Kampala has today sentenced Pine Car Dealer Muhammad Ssebuufu to 40 years in prison after he was found guilty of murdering Dona Katushabe for allegedly failing to pay a debt of Shs9m.
Ssebuufu’s six other accomplices have been sentenced to the same and told to compensate Dona’s family with Shs100m. Lwanga Steven, the eighth convict in the same case got seven years for picking up the late Katushabe from her home to her death point in his special hire car.
High Court Judge, Flavia Anglin Ssennoga found Ssebuufu and his accomplices guilty on June 24, 2019, but read out their sentence today.
State Prosecutors had initially asked for a maximum of death sentence arguing that Katushabe’s murder case meets all “conduits of the rarest of the rare” for one to receive a death sentence.
“Court being the guardian and promoter of rule of law in the country should send a clear signal to the convicts and anyone of a like nature. Therefore we invite court from the ends of justice to be met that a maximum sentence of death be passed,” the prosecutor said.
Ssebuufu’s lawyers through Counsel Evans Ochieng pleaded against the death sentence in court, arguing that their client is a first-time offender, married with seven children and that they will suffer when he is away.
The lawyers say that they will appeal Ssebuufu’s sentence in the court of appeal.