By Spy Uganda
Kampala: Buganda Road Magistrates Marion Mangei and Siena Owomugisha last month convicted and sentenced faded city socialite Honest Kavuma alias Champagne Papi to 13 years in prison over fraud related crimes.
According to court documents, Kavuma was charged with 60 offences of fraud, money laundering, forgery, obtaining money by false pretense among others.
Kavuma was also found guilty of conniving with fake Bayern Munich officials and tried to con Hamis Kiggundu aka Ham $5,000,000 (Approximately Shs.18 Billion).
He also forged letters claiming that Mathias Schauler, German’s ambassador to Uganda, Daniel Hogele, Bayern Munich football club Director for International Business and Strategy, Christopher Baldwin, another Director in Bayern Munich, had recommended him as the football club’s representative in Uganda and that he had been given permission to legally make transactions on behalf of Bayern Munich.
Kavuma was also charged with uttering false documents for accountability and forging land titles for land located in Munyonyo.
After pleading guilty and sentenced, Kavuma, through his family members approached the State to find ways of saving him from dying in prison as a result of unattended and deteriorating health.
This was after his lawyers warned him that he had a bad case and chances were high that he was going to rot in jail.
Due to his retaliating health condition in prison, he got a suspended sentence but on a condition that, ‘should he try to do any fraudulent act, he goes back to jail and start serving his awaiting sentence.’
But What’s A Suspended Sentence?
To our readers, a suspended sentence is the judicial delay of a defendant’s duty to start serving a sentence once he or she has been convicted or found guilty, so that the defendant is able to perform an intervening probation period.
So long as the criminal defendant does not break the law an additional time during the probationary period and is able to meet the specific conditions set by the court for probation, the sitting judge normally eliminates the sentence entirely.
A suspended sentence usually remains on the defendant’s criminal record permanently. It is a fixture of the defendant’s criminal history forever.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time, Kavuma Honest has been involved in fraud, about 10 years ago, Kavuma who was staying in Finland conned money from colleagues and disappeared back to Uganda.
In 2017, Kavuma was news again after he allegedly defrauded Nigerian businessman, Jay Florin Adebayo, Director of Citi Commodities $193m.
In January 2022, Kavuma was placed on Uganda Police Force’s wanted list after a two years’ accommodation debt of amounting to Shs.170 million.
He allegedly escaped without clearing his bill of USD48,000 (Ugx 170, 253,504) that accumulated through accommodation and food at Speke apartments.
