Wakilii

Kisakya & Another v Uganda (Criminal Appeal 22 of 1991)

Supreme Court · [1992] UGSC 19 · 1992 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Criminal appeal to the Supreme Court from conviction and sentence of the High Court (Kato, J.) for murder and aggravated robbery
Decision
Appeals against conviction and sentence dismissed; conviction and sentence of the High Court upheld against both appellants

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Holding

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the convictions for murder and aggravated robbery. It held that the trial judge correctly found favourable conditions for identification: the appellants were well known to several prosecution witnesses, there was light from lamps and torches in each room they entered, and they spent appreciable time at the scene, so the possibility of mistaken identity was excluded. The trial judge had properly considered the defence evidence and rightly rejected the appellants' alibis as destroyed by the prosecution evidence. After referring the allegations of trial irregularity to the trial judge for a report under the Rules of Court and accepting that report, the Court found the complaints about the conduct of the trial were unfounded.

Facts

On the night of 19 March, members of a homestead at Mugeri village, Iganga District, had retired to bed when a gang of armed attackers struck. Gun shots were fired at the houses and the intruders entered immediately, some flashing torches. The wife of one resident was shot dead inside her house and died at once. The assailants took away household property including a bicycle and shoes. Several occupants who testified for the prosecution recognised both appellants, whom they had known for periods of years as neighbours, by lamp and torch light within the houses and, in places, by their voices. The appellants each set up an alibi: the first said he was at a second home seven miles away, supported by his two wives; the second said he was asleep at home, was woken by gun shots, fled, and was later arrested. The trial judge rejected both alibis and, agreeing with the assessors, found the appellants properly identified as participants in the robbery and murder.

Issues

  1. Whether the appellants were properly identified as participants in the robbery and murder at the scene of the crime.
  2. Whether the trial judge properly considered the defence evidence (alibi and alleged grudge) and tested it against the prosecution evidence.
  3. Whether the trial judge conducted the trial with such irregularity or bias as to occasion a miscarriage of justice.

Orders

  • The appellants' appeals against conviction and sentence are dismissed.
  • The conviction and sentence passed by the trial judge are upheld.

Key headnotes

Evidence — Identification — Conditions favouring correct identification by recognition
Where the accused are well known to the witnesses, there is adequate light from lamps or torches in the rooms they enter, and they remain at the scene for an appreciable time, the conditions favour correct identification and exclude the possibility of mistaken identity.
Criminal Law & Procedure — Defence of alibi — Rejection where displaced by identification evidence
A defence of alibi is properly rejected where the prosecution's evidence of identification places the accused at the scene and the supporting alibi witnesses are found untruthful or contradictory.
Criminal Law & Procedure — Common intention — Liability under s.22 of the Penal Code
Persons who actively participate together in an armed attack share a common intention under section 22 of the Penal Code and are each liable for the robbery and murder committed in execution of that common purpose.
Criminal Law & Procedure — Conduct of trial — Trial judge's power to question witnesses
A trial judge is entitled by law to put questions to witnesses to clarify their evidence, and doing so, or declining to record overruled objections to such questioning, does not of itself amount to irregularity or bias.

Legislation cited (4)

  • Penal Code Act s.272
  • Penal Code Act s.273(2)
  • Penal Code Act s.22
  • Penal Code Act (murder — section number illegible in source text)

Cases cited (4)

  • Abudalla Nabulere's case
  • Raphael Alphonse v Republic [1973] EA 473
  • Rafael Kabanda v Uganda [1976] HCB 113
  • Erisa Rutagonya v Uganda [1973] HCB 33
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.