Distressed lawyer Male Mabirizi says he will die at the Maximum Security Prison in Luzira if he is not transferred back to Kitalya government prison immediately.
While appearing before the Buganda Road Magistrates Court with the offensive communication case against him, a teary Mabirizi told the presiding Magistrate that he abruptly switched prisons without prior notice and has been suffering since then.
According to Mabirizi, he failed to have a meal on Monday because he was brought from his old prison at Kitalya Min Max Prison in Wakiso District to the High Court where he was following up some of his other cases. He says afterwards ,wardens rushed him to Luzira Maximum Security Upper Prison where he spent a night without eating.
He told Court that everything at Luzira Upper Prison is a mess on grounds that he cannot see anything that side ,no mattress to sleep on and he was reportedly feeling too dizzy to stand in Court.
Mabirizi said he left all his food at Kitalya including boxes of biscuits and that he had paid for food for ten days and also paid 7,000 shillings for chapati.
But he wasn’t informed that he is being transferred to Luzira Maximum Security Prison adding that his committal documents show that he had to serve his sentence from Kitalya Prison.
According to Mabirizi, all this is persecution from the prison because of having obtained a High Court order in which the Officer in Charge of Kitalya Superintendent of Prison Hussein Aikomundu was directed to return all the documents he had confiscated from him.
The documents in question were related to a case in which Mabirizi wants the bail of Pastor Aloysius Bujjingo and his fiance Susan Makula canceled for having been granted without giving him a right to be heard in the case where he accuses the couple for bigamy.
According to Mabirizi, the documents were confiscated as the Prisons looked for his March 31st letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet seeking to put in place a tribunal to remove Musa Ssekaana from office as a High Court Judge over incompetence.
Mabirizi pleaded with the Magistrate to either direct that he goes back to Kitalya Prison, or at least be taken to Luzira Murchison Bay Prison on the basis that his jail term is not like for criminals but instead arises from civil matters.
The Court has heard that Mabirizi is most likely to die in the Maximum Security Prison if at all his prayer is not granted because he feels his right to life is being threatened.
In response, the State Attorneys led by Keko have informed Court that Mabirizi’s prayer arises from a Civil matter from the High Court and therefore it would not be proper for them to concede to his request or object to it.
Keko informed Court that this is a civil matter, it would require that it goes back to the High Court and Attorney General responds to it.
The Magistrate Nambozo later took a break of one hour to write her ruling . But she returned after more than two hours saying she was unable to deliver it because she got caught up with other matters. She thus asked Mabirizi to bear with the Court and return tomorrow April 14th 2022 for the decision.
According to the Uganda Prisons Services Spokesperson, Frank Baine, under the Uganda Prisons Services Act, the discretion to transfer an inmate from one prison to another either for security or medical reasons rests with the Commissioner General of Prisons.
Mabirizi was jailed at Kitalya Mini Max Prison in February 2022 to serve an 18 months jail term for having been found guilty for contempt of court because of using his social media platforms to abuse judicial officers.
Mabirizi is accused of using his social media platforms to abuse Justice Musa Ssekaana by making posts that were reportedly meant to reduce the Judge’s self-esteem and to embarrass him in front of the right-thinking members of society shortly after he had made a decision to jail him.
