Pro-Molly petition to DPP fails at feet of sanctions

On November 21, Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA), lawyers for Molly Katanga and her children, petitioned the Office of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (ODPP), complaining about the way in which they said police was handling investigations into the death of Henry Katanga. 

Katanga had been married to Molly for about three decades before the husband succumbed to bullet wounds on November 2, in circumstances now formally being treated as murder.

The lawyers complained about the manner and motive of information gathered by investigators being leaked, according to them, to a one Barnabas Taremwa, a brother-in-law to the deceased, who, alongside late Katanga’s uncle, Brig Freddie Karara Machwa, on November 16 filed an application at the Civil Division of the High Court in Kampala, seeking an inquest to Katanga’s demise. 

An inquest is a public judicial inquiry, and not a trial, conducted to establish the accurate circumstances of the death of a person and actual cause. 

“Our clients have seen several media stories about the death of their father/husband. The media reports are awash with findings that could be as a result of accessing the police file. It is, therefore, on [this] basis that we have been asked to complain to you about the way this investigation is being conducted,” the lawyers from KAA noted in their letter to the DPP.

The lawyers also in their complaint, claimed their client Molly has since undergone multiple surgeries following the severe head and arm wounds she sustained during a fight in the night her husband died. 

They said facts of Molly’s injuries were being left out to skew a narrative that incriminates their clients. 

“As a result, Molly Katanga has undergone multiple surgeries. Molly Katanga’s hand injuries were so severe that the doctors have amputated one of her fingers on the right hand having tried to save it in two previous surgeries,” they wrote. 

However, the fate of the complaint appeared in peril as it coincided with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Jane Frances Abodo, yesterday sanctioning charges of murder against Molly. 

She also sanctioned charges of destroying evidence against Ms Molly’s daughters; Martha Katanga Nkwanzi and Patricia Katanga Kakwanza.

Others facing trial over Katanga’s death, but relating to being accessory to the fact of murder, included nursing officer Charles Otai and gardener George Amanyire.
 
Inquest application 
In the application for conduct of inquest, Brig Machwa and Mr Taremwa, raised more than half-a-dozen grounds. 
They said the claim that Katanga committed suicide, a narrative in their filings in court linked to relatives of the widow, was suspect because the deceased was right-handed yet he took the killer bullet to his left ear. 

This, the duo argues, showed some other person(s), whose identity they argue an inquest would reveal, killed their loved one. 

Their application, like the petition by the lawyers for Molly and her daughters to the DPP, was overtaken by the sanctioning of criminal offences against the accused.  

The ongoing fight for the truth on what exactly happened on November 2, leading to Katanga’s murder, has exposed a layering of state and military power on the sides of both the deceased and the widow.