The panel of 9 Supreme Court judges led by Chief Justice Bart Katureebe, who are hearing the petition against last year’s elections have warned lawyers of the petitioner Amama Mbabazi against playing mind games in court.
Mbabazi’s lawyers wrote to court informing it of the break-ins at the chambers of lead counsel Muhamad Mbabazi and Fred Muwema yesterday on top of the alleged arrests of their key witnesses.
In reply to the accusations, lawyers representing President Museveni asked court to punish their counterparts saying they had stage-managed the break-ins.
According to the deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana, the petitioners assure court in their amended petition that they had in hand affidavits and other pieces of evidence in the case that they were ready to serve court by closure of business on Monday.
“We were ready to receive the affidavits but up to date we have not got anything from them. It seems the break-ins were stage-managed to get sympathy from court, the public on top of covering up the case and to buy more time,” Rukutana told court.
“We are all members of court who are supposed to guide court but not mislead it by telling lies and causing alarm for whatever reasons.”
The respondents asked court to punish their counterparts from the petitioning side for accusing them of acts that were not existent.
On the arrests, Museveni lawyers told court they did investigations and inquiries but found out that there was no one arrested from Mbabazi’s home and detained at Kireka SIU as alleged.
“We found that the allegations were false, unfounded and malicious because no one by the name mentioned by our counterparts was detained at Kireka. We protest counsels’ unprofessional conduct and unbecoming behavior,” added Rukutana.
However in response, Mbabazi’s lawyers led by Asuman Basaalirwa said that their witnesses had since been transferred from Kireka to Jinja and Nalufenya before being released.
Judges Fume
The Chief Justice Bart Katureebe on this matter warned Mbabazi’s lawyers against taking court for a ride with their accusations.
He said the lawyers had promised to table the affidavits by the closure of business on Monday when they filed the amended petition, noting court was surprised they are claiming that the documents were stolen during yesterday’s break-in.
“We are now being treated right, left and centre .You can go on claiming that your witnesses were arrested but there is no record of their names here. You must go an extra mile of being serious with the case,” Katureebe fumed.
He accused the lawyers of being non-compliant with the court order directing them to hand in the affidavits by Monday adding that they ought to have handed in them by the time of the break-ins.