High Court justice Wilson Musene Masalu has on Tuesday morning set sodomy convict and former Cranes manager Chris Mubiru free after faulting the magistrate’s court of wrongly convicting him.
Buganda road court chief magistrate Lilian Buchana last year had convicted Mubiru and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment after being found guilty of sodomy. The convict was also ordered pay Shs 50million to the victim.
Mubiru this year appealed at the High court against the sentence, saying the trial magistrate erred when he considered evidence from a video which had not been tendered in court.
In his judgment on Tuesday morning, Justice Masalu ruled further that it was wrong for the victim not to report to police, having been sodomized in 2009 and waited in 2013 when many years had already passed.
“He should have done it when it was still hot and not in 2013 to pastor Solomon Male,” the judge said.
The judge further noted that there should have been a medical report to help corroborate the evidence of the victim as required by law, adding that its absence meant the evidence was very weak and could not be considered while convicting the suspect.
On the videos, the High Court judge said this evidence was a waste of court’s time because none of those filmed as victims had complained in court.
“I find and hold that the trial magistrate failed to evaluate evidence and wrongfully convicted the appellant .I therefore set aside the sentence by the trial court and set the appellant free,” he said.