As the police and other security agencies continue with their manhunt for the killers of Sheikh Maj Muhammad Kiggundu and his bodyguard Sgt Steven Mukasa, experts have pointed out why sometimes security forces have fallen flat in their efforts to collect evidence and secure convictions in courts.

Since 2005, many high-profile murder cases have gripped the country with the police in some cases even failing to make any arrests while, in others that get to the DPP or the court of law, the files are thrown out for lack of evidence.

For instance, the 2012 killing of Sheikh Abdulkarim Ssentamu, and a number of other prominent Muslim leaders, especially in eastern Uganda, remains unresolved until now.

Speaking to The Observer on phone yesterday, MacDosman Kabega, one of the most highly-rated criminal lawyers in Kampala blames the police for carrying out investigations in the media.

“The biggest problem with the investigative arm is the manner in which they publicise their investigations. Today, you hear police is doing this, tomorrow people are criticising what the police is doing and all sorts of comments are made. Elsewhere you can never find such a thing,” he said.

According to Kabega, the police should get into the habit of carrying out its investigations away from the glare of the media in order to avoid being influenced or making rushed decisions.

“Investigations are supposed to be done in confidence. The moment you start exposing what your findings are, the public begins to influence you. They begin asking questions like; why they are not doing this or that and in the process police get taken up by those comments which lead to derailment of cases,” he added.

Kabega said that because of the very high standard of proof that courts require before making a ruling, half-baked investigations will often fail to secure convictions, whether in high or low profile cases.

“It is proof beyond reasonable doubt [that courts need]. If the evidence doesn’t reach that threshold, then the court inevitably has no choice but to acquit the accused,” Kabega said.

This view; is shared by another criminal lawyer, Isaac Walukagga, who works with MMAKS Advocates. He said the state largely fails to secure convictions due to lack of thorough investigations.

“It is hard to get evidence for such cases because the way they are executed is always sophisticated,” Walukagga said, adding that most of the perpetrators in high-profile murder cases are always very smart while executing their missions.

“So, the intelligence and prosecution arm of government have to take their game a notch higher to gather sufficient evidence necessary for conviction,” Walukagga says.

However, Johnson Mande Agaba, a private investigator, says conviction or the lack of it is a collective effort between different government agencies, not just the result of failed investigations.

“Conviction is a subject of various efforts. It calls for the working together of the justice and law sector including police, the prosecution, the judiciary and prisons,” said Mande, who once worked with police as the head of the Homicide department.

Mande, however, also admits that the building blocks for a strong case are assembled at the investigations level. “Police can also fail to do their part in assembling evidence, leading to the case being thrown out of court,” Mande admitted.

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