Prime
Man jailed 70 years for killing his police lover, student girlfriend
Double murder convict Dennis Arinaitwe appears in the dock in Kabale District on March 18, 2024. PHOTO/ROBERT MUHEREZA
What you need to know:
- The judge condemned him for being a coward who tried to escape justice by attempting to shoot and kill himself using the ill-fated gun.
A 22-year-old man who used his female police lover’s gun to kill her before stabbing his other student girlfriend to death has been sentenced to 70 years imprisonment.
Dennis Arinaitwe pleaded guilty to the double murder charges under the plea bargain where he hoped to get a lesser sentence.
However, while sentencing Arinaitwe, Kabale High Court judge, Samuel Emokor said “his acts of killing his lovers at separate places in Kabale Town were beyond human emotions on the persons he was supposed to protect from any form of harm.”
Prosecution led by Juliet Najunju told court that Arinaitwe on March 19, 2023 at Kabale Police Barracks, with malice aforethought, unlawfully shot and killed Police Constable (PC) Caroline Komuhangi using her own gun before he attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself.
Prosecution further told court that on the same day, Arinaitwe, while at Kamukira Cell in Kabale Municipality, with malice aforethought stabbed to death his other girlfriend Sarah Naturinda. She was a second-year student at Kabale University at the time.
“Although the convict did not waste the court’s time and government resources for his full trial by pleading guilty to the double murder charges, I agree with the state prosecution that he deserves a deterrent sentence,” Justice Emorkor emphasized.
According to the judge, the manner in which the offences were committed was not only brutal but beyond human emotions.
He condemned Arinaitwe for being a coward who tried to escape justice by attempting to shoot himself.
“God did not allow the intended act of the convict who ended up disfiguring himself with ugly scars on his body,” he noted.
“The convict is hereby sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for each of the murder case he committed, and court has subtracted 10-months and 18-days he has been on remand for each case and this means that he will serve 34-years for each murder case,” Justice Emorkor ruled.
He explained that the convict has a right of appeal against the sentence in case he is not happy with it.
