By Spy Uganda Investigations Crew
Last week, after TheSpy Uganda ran Hamba Coreen’s story, it has come to our knowledge that I&M Bank lawyers reached out to her lawyers of M/S Nabukenya, Mulalira & Co. Advocates based at Nkrumar Road.
However, what puzzled Coreen’s family members was to learn from their lawyer, who attended on their behalf of the foolery they turned what was meant to be a harmonizing engagement that was to focus more on the right of the suspect to have a fair hearing, but instead turned into a money gambling fete-sort of a casino betting game.
Our Spy has since learnt that when the I&M Bank lawyers arrived, the only language they wanted to discuss was money money money, not equity, fairness and justice.
“Can you imagine when they called Coreen’s lawyer for an engagement, they boastfully ordered that for Coreen to even smell at a judge, she must first deposit over Shs35m?! They even went ahead and made a breakdown as security deposit shs 25m, their legal fees shs 7m and subsistence fee (feeding in prison) shs 1.2m,” a family member told our Spy.
She added thus; “they even bragged that Justice Harriet Grace Magala, who is handling the file and whom they ‘know very well’ and Mulondo Mastula (court registrar) won’t give them production warrant unless that amount is paid.”
This left the family wondering whether justice in Uganda is now for sale. “If for one to be presented before the court you need to first pay, then is the court still a temple of justice?” wondered a friend who had come to console the family.
In normal circumstances, such conditions are set by the presiding judge or magistrate as part of the bail terms, but after appearing before them, not what I&M lawyers are dictating like they’re the ones writing the bail conditions for the judge only to read. “That shows you the extent of impunity and abuse of court processes” added a relative, who is also a security officer at the rank of ASP in the Uganda Police Force.
