Chris Mubiru who is considered one of the top promoters of homosexuality in Uganda was this week convicted and jailed in Luzira prison for seducing, drugging and performing sodomy on a young man.
Mubiru, who had earlier evaded justice by escaping to the United Kingdom, was in the dock when Buganda road magistrate Flavia Nabakooza was reading out the judgement written by predecessor Magistrate Lillian Buchana.
Mubiru was sent to Luzira until September 18, 2015 when he will be brought back to court for sentencing.
Mubiru’s victim, one Emmanuel Nnyanzi was not in court when the judgement was being read, but told The Sunrise that he felt happy that court had finally delivered justice to him.
Speaking to The Sunrise in a telephone call from, Kenya where he is currently working, Nnyanzi said: “I feel happy that Mubiru has finally been jailed.”
Nnyanzi also thanked Pastor Moses Solomon Male, one of the vanguards of the war against homosexuality, for helping him pursue the case to its final conclusion.
Mubiru was charged under section 145 (a) of the Penal code act of Uganda, which criminalises homosexuality, otherwise referred to as Having carnal knowledge of someone against the order of nature.
Mubiru’s conviction has been celebrated by fighters of homosexuality in Uganda as a major victory in a war which they say threatens to undermine man’s very own existence but also one that leaves victims nursing grave health and psychological trauma.
The conviction is a further blow to homosexuals and promoters of the vice and comes hardly a month after another major verdict was handed down by the Chief Magistrate’s court of Mukono to a one Shabaz Muhammed for committing a similar crime against another young man, one Sulaiman Kasolo two years ago.
Muhammed, a former Personnel Officer at Abisha Steel Industries in Lugazi along Jinja Road, was convicted last month and sentenced to ten years in jail for drugging and sodomising Kasolo.
He was also denied the possibility of remission. Muhammed’s 10 year sentence was the longest in recent years.
Nnyanzi told court that in 2009, Chris Mubiru met him at Mateo’s Bar in Kampala where he befriended him and promised to take him back to school after the young man had fallen out with his parents.
Court heard that Mubiru invited Nnyanzi to an alleged family meeting along Kabakanjagala road to meet with friends and relatives. However, Nnyanzi narrates that when he got to the home and venue of the family meeting, Mubiru informed Nnyanzi that the meeting had been rescheduled to the beach and that the duo would join them later.
Mubiru, instead offered Nnyanzi drinks before they would leave for the beach. This, according to Nnyanzi was the last thing he remembered, before he woke up naked in a bed, with Mubiru lying by his side.
Nnyanzi told court that he was bleeding from the anus and that when he asked Mubiru how he had gotten on the bed, the response was that he was too drunk to go home and was taken in to rest.
When he asked why he was bleeding, Mubiru told his victim then that he had nothing to do with it, and that it was likely due to strange diseases. Leaving Mubiru’s home amid pain, Nnyanzi went to see a Doctor, who dropped the bombshell that he had been sodomised.
The following days and weeks were perhaps Nnyanzi’s most trying moments in life as he contemplated suicide or killing his abuser, as he told court. Thanks however to counselling from Pastor Solomon Male, Nnyanzi resolved to seek justice in courts of law, that has culminated in victory this week.
For Pastor Male though, the conviction of Mubiru, who was linked to a number of similar abuses in his S.C Villa club and nearly caused a revolt in the club is ‘sweet victory for all right-minded Ugandans’.
He told The Sunrise that: “Court has again proved that laws exist on the Penal Code and they are very strong and effective in curbing the vice of sodomy, if only the police, judiciary and the directorate of public prosecutions do their job.”
Male added: “This ruling further re-emphasises my argument that Parliamentarians rather than waste time on new laws, must clean up the systems supposed to enforce the laws and ensure justice and redress so that systems can work.”
Male sent a warning message to homosexuals saying that he will continue to haunt them as long as they force young men as well as children into homosexuality.
He said: “I want to send a strong message to homosexuals that if they want to have peace with us, let them not sodomize children and people who don’t want their vice.”
He added: “As long as we continue receiving victims of their heinous acts, we are duty bound to act so that they access justice.”
As he waits his sentence, which could be as high as life-imprisonment, or a few years, fellow prisoners as well as prison authorities must be having a hard time about the presence of such a feared homosexual.
