Dollo demands speedy trial for jailed NUP MPs

The Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo has vowed to seek to drop the murder cases slapped against Kawempe North MP Muhammad Ssegirinya and Makindye West MP Allan Ssewanyana.

Dollo said this during the opening of the new legal year 2023 at the headquarters of the judiciary. His infuriated came after president Museveni declined to approve a request to have the welfare and payment of judges and judicial officers elevated as earlier urged by the CJ Dollo.

Dollo said the trial of the two lawmakers and their partners will begin this year and he will seek dismissal if the state is not ready to proceed.

“This year the trial of MPs will begin and there will be no games. I will ask the trial Judge to not entertain any nonsense during the trial. If the State is not ready, we shall dismiss the case,” Chief Justice Owiny Dollo said.

President Yoweri Museveni explained last month why two the jailed MPs, Hon. Muhammed Ssegirinya and Hon. Allan Ssewanyana, were held for more than a year before trial at Luzira prison.

Museveni told Journalist Remmy Bahati on the sidelines of the US-Africa Summit in Washington DC that the two MPs did not deserve bail because their crimes were related to the deaths of 28 innocent people in Masaka.

According to Museveni, bailing out suspects accused of murder is a joke.

“Those people have been arrested legally, they come to court quite often, and the court is the one that sends them back to jail. The charges they are facing are serious charges to do with killing people. People were killed, 28 of them, in Masaka City were cut with machetes,” Museveni Said.