The High Court in Kampala has on Monday, February 17, found Brain Bagyenda the son to ISO director Col. Kaka Bagyenda guilty of the murdering of his girlfriend in 2016.
Brian has been found guilty by Justice Moses Kazibwe Kawumi alongside his accomplices Innocent Bainomugisha, cleaner and Vincent Rwahwire, a casual worker for the murder of Enid Twijukye; a former second-year student of Ndejje University.
While convicting the trio the judge dismissed Bagyenda’s defence of mental illness as a lie as it was confirmed to the court that a person burdened with depression cannot premeditate an offence, commit it and hide evidence thus he was in control of his senses.
Justice Kazibwe listed down the actions of Bagyenda that showed he was of sound mind at the time he committed the offence and these included; sending away his maid to Kalerwe Market for shopping instead of Luzira Market, calling Enid at his residence in Luzira, flipping through her phone, calling his two accomplices, drawing the curtains, turning high the TV volume, dumping of the body to destroy evidence and the change of identity while booking into the Voyageur hotel, dumping the body in Namanve forest to clear evidence and sending a condolence fee of UGX.200,000 to Twijukye’s family.
Bagyenda’s lawyers had wanted him to be sent to a lunatic asylum and await a ministerial proposal arguing that at the time of committing the murder, he was battling from severe depression and had been admitted at Butabiika mental hospital.
However, after a careful perusal of all the prosecution evidence justice, Kazibwe rejected this line of defence and ruled that Bagyeda premeditated the murder of Twijukye and later on called his two accomplices; Bainomugisha and Rwahirwe to tie her on the bed and suffocate her using pillows and the fact that his father withdrew him from the hospital and no single person reported about his deteriorating mental condition after the commission of the offence.
“The motivation for the murder was in my view the realization by Bagyenda that Enid was no longer the submissive lover she had initially been and yet he had spent much on her. What followed after that realization were actions not of a depressed person but of one executing a premeditated offence,” the judge ruled.
The prosecution asked the court to hand down a maximum sentence death penalty given the nature of the crime.
However, the judge ruled that he did not find their case to be the rear of the rarest cases meriting the death sentence thus a custodial sentence is fitting in the circumstances considering the mitigation factors.
The judge also reasoned that disagreements in love relationships are a common occurrence and should not be the reason for ending one’s life thus since they had been on remand for three years, the remand period was reduced from their sentence of 32 years.
