Justice Ralph Ochan was on Monday forced to adjourn proceedings of the terrorism trial against 18 Buganda youths saying he is fed up of prosecution witnesses who are police officers yet exhibit ignorance of the constitution.
This was after the investigating officer of the case who is also prosecution witness number 11, Detective Constable John Steven Okello, showed ignorance of the law when he stated in court that he is not aware that it’s in breach of the constitution to charge suspects under police custody after 48 hours.
This prompted defence lawyer Medard Sseggona to hand him a copy of the constitution to read but he arrogantly stated that producing these youths in court after 10 days in custody was not against the law.
Justice Ochan had earlier advised that serious offences such as terrorism should be pursued by most senior police officers and not junior officers at the bottom who work on the orders of their superiors.
In his testimony, Okello told court that he was assigned by his boss, the officer in charge CID Vincent Okurut to carry out investigations as to why people rioted in September 2009. His investigations revealed that people wanted to influence government to change the decision it had taken as regards Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s visit to Kayunga district.
Okello exhibited ignorance of some facts such as dates on which the case file was sent to the DPP to consent to the charge or when he made his own statement in a case that he personally handled. He said that basing on the statements he had collected from other police officers, he suggested that a charge of terrorism should be preferred against the youths.
However, he stunned court when he said that he sent the case file to the DPP on September 23, 2009, and later on got the file back to include his own statement which he made in May 2010 because he was busy, long before the suspects had been charged before Makindye Magistrates’ Court.
The case was pushed to tomorrow.
