MPs Ssewanyana & Ssegirinya Finally Granted Bail

The High Court in Masaka granted bail to MPs Allan Ssewanyana of Makindye West and Kawempe North’s Muhammad Ssegirinya who is accused of masterminding Masaka murders.

Masaka High Court judge,   Lawrence Tweyanze on Monday afternoon reasoned with the lawyers of the two legislators that it is their constitutional right for the two to be released on bail but also to enable them to get treatment outside the prison they have been incarcerated in September 2021.

The judge directed that each of the two legislators pays a cash bond of shs20 million as well as deposit their passports with the court.

The sureties for the MPs have each been asked to pay an shs50 million non-cash bond.

The legislators have also been asked to report to the registrar of the  International Crimes Division of the High Court in Kampala once a month but also warned against interfering with investigations into their cases.

The release on bail came on the backdrop of an unprecedented move in which the state which had earlier opposed the application by the two legislators opted to reverse the same.

Chief state attorney,  Richard Birivumbuka told the court on Monday morning that the DPP  had issued a certificate of no objection to the bail application and subsequently asked that the three affidavits filed against the bail application be withdrawn.

The state attorney, however, asked the court for a “substantial amount of cash” to be imposed on the two legislators if the court is to release them on bail.

The two MPs were arrested and detained in Kitalya in September last year alongside Wilson Ssenyonga who testified against them for murdering Joseph Bwanika a resident of Kisseka B village in the Lwengo district. The late Bwanika is among the 26 people who were killed during the wave of attacks in the Lwengo and Masaka districts between July and August last year.

According to the charge-sheet statement presented to the court by Masaka Resident Chief State Attorney Richard Birivumbuka, Ssenyonga who was arrested shortly after the murder confessed to having been hired by the two legislators to kill Bwanika.

Ssenyonga says that in his Charge and Caution statement on court records, he and other people still at large held a meeting with the two MPs at Happy Boys-Ndeeba near Kabaka’s Lake in Kampala to plan the killings as a way of sending a message to the government that they were robbed of their 2021 general elections victory.

“The police investigations revealed that after the meeting, Ssenyonga and others still at large proceeded to Lwengo where they executed the murders,” the charge sheet reads in part.

Birivumbuka told the court that part of the evidence included among others; CCTV footage and data from Ssenyonga’s mobile telephone which all places the accused persons including MPs at the same meeting location. He asked the court to commit the accused persons to the High Court for trial since the state had already gathered enough evidence to sustain prosecution against them.

The MPs are charged with murder and terrorism in which the Prosecution alleges that on the 4th day of August 2021, the MPs killed one Bwanika Joseph of Kisekka B Village, Kankamba Parish, Lwengo District. 

The two MPs were slapped with several charges related to terrorism, murder, and attempted murder over their alleged role in the Greater Masaka machete killings where over 30 people were left dead by unknown assailants who hacked them using machetes.

According to the summary of evidence that the state availed to court and would be relied on in pinning the accused persons, there is CCTV footage allegedly captured from a restaurant and other places in Ndeeba linking the two legislators and other accused to planning the killings in Masaka.

According to the indictment, the killings were politically motivated with an aim of discrediting the government, and the assailants were paid between shs50,000 and shs100,000 whenever they held meetings to plan the attacks.

The two MPs have since denied the allegations saying they are maliciously framed by the state adding that they have never held any meeting with Ssenyonga; the key witness on who the state is relying to implicate them in the murder.