The Counter Terrorism Police at the International Crimes Division of the High Court in Kampala are holding Isaac Byaruhanga in their custody on charges of criminal trespass.
According to the officers who have declined to be quoted, not being authorized to speak for the force, Byaruhanga, a resident of Kabale district, has been arrested after trespassing in the chambers of International Crimes Division Judge Alice Komuhangi Khaukha.
According to the officers, Byaruhanga, while at the checkpoint of the building, indicated that he was going to attend court. However, he reportedly proceeded up to the Judge’s Chambers on the first floor and told her close body guard that he had an appointment with the Lady Justice.
The VIP bodyguard inquired of the judge whether she had an appointment with such a person. But the sources said the judge declined, saying she didn’t have an appointment with him and that she was busy executing her judicial functions.
But the man reportedly insisted and refused to leave the entrance of the chambers and this is when the body guard went back and asked the judge what to do with the man who had insisted on seeing her.
The judge reportedly told the guard that she didn’t know Byaruhanga, and the sources say that security personnel could not take it for granted and arrested him, citing criminal trespass.
Upon interrogation, Byaruhanga is alleged to have told the counter terrorism officers that he had been told that there was a Munyankore Judge at the International Crimes Division called Alice Komuhangi Khaukha, and she had come to ask for help from her.
Byaruhanga, who appeared dressed in grey trousers and a yellow T-shirt, was found with medicine of different types and medical documents from Mulago National Referral Hospital.
The police at the court now say that he is to be transferred to Jinja Road Police Station for further action.
Byaruhanga, who did not have a copy of his National Identification Card save for medical documents, appeared at court limping with a healing deep cut covered by his trousers on one of his knees.
Lady Justice Komuhangi is one of the judges appointed by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in 2021. Prior to her appointment, she was the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, heading the Directorate of Inspections, Quality Assurance, Research, and Training of Officers at the office of the DPP.
She was, before that appointment, the head of the Anti-Corruption Court.
But since she became a judge, she has been in charge of high-profile cases in the International Crimes Division of the High Court.
Some of the cases include presiding over the pretrial of the case in which six people, including Kawempe North Member of Parliament Muhammad Ssegirinya and his Makindye West counterpart Allan Ssewanyana, are being charged with the machete killings of people in Masaka and Lwengo districts; the trial of Rwenzururu Kingdom leader Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere and more than 200 others on terrorism; and the suspects implicated in the attempted murder of General Katumba Wamala and the subsquent murders of his daughter Brenda Nantongo and driver Sargent Haruna Kayondo.
