A prisons guard leads Akbar Hussein Godi (R) to a cell at Mukono Chief Magistrates Court in 2008. File Photo .
Rehema Caesar was shot and died as a result of gunshot injuries on the evening of December 4, 2008. Her husband, Akbar Hussein Godi was convicted of her murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail, a sentence upheld by both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Uganda.
In August 2008, Godi, while in Arua, obtained a license for a firearm and he, as a result, could acquire up to 25 rounds of ammunition. He requested for the gun for personal protection, citing threats to himself. He bought the pistol with 7 rounds of ammunitions and on December 10, 2008, he obtained 10 more rounds of ammunition from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence. When Godi surrendered the pistol to the police after the death of Rehema, the pistol had six rounds of ammunition.
The police recovered 11 rounds of ammunition from his house. In total, 17 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Godi told Court that he never fired any bullet from that pistol. The ballistic expert who examined Godi’s pistol testified in court that she detected gunshot residue in the barrel of the gun but could not tell when it was last fired.
Godi’s lawyers told court that all the ammunition Godi acquired was accounted for. The Prosecution argued that Godi had the capacity to get bullets from other sources, which sources they did not mention. Prosecution should have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Godi acquired extra bullets from other sources following the disclosure that all the bullets he had were accounted for.
At the scene where Rehema was shot and killed, two spent cartridges were recovered. The body of Rehema was subjected to an x-ray during the postmortem to establish if there were bullets that had not exited from her body. A bullet lodged in her back was recovered and submitted for ballistic analysis. The ballistic expert failed to tell court if the bullet recovered was actually fired from Godi’s pistol.
However the expert instead told Court that, using microscopic comparisons, the ejector and breach imprints on the spent cartridges recovered from the scene of crime matched those of the spent cartridges when she test-fired Godi’s pistol.
She concluded that in her opinion, the spent cartridges recovered from the scene of crime were fired from Godi’s pistol. Why then did she not match the bullet recovered at postmortem with the Godi’s gun? The bullet was intact and not deformed at all.
The shoes evidence
On December 16, 2008, one pair of black shoes size 42 was recovered from Godi’s house. Four grammes of soil samples were recovered from the pair of shoes and submitted to the laboratory for a comparative analysis with soil samples obtained from the scene of her murder.
The soil samples from the scene were obtained two weeks after the murder yet the scene had not been secured. The soil sample was taken to a Government Analyst who informed court that he was a specialist in Food Science and Technology, Applied Food Analysis, Forensic Science, and Instrumentation Technologies in Analysis.
He admitted that he was not a soil specialist. The specialist compared the mineral profiles of the two soils as well as their sand, silt and clay profiles. The Analyst concluded that from a statistical analysis, there was a 99.9 per cent chance that the two soil samples were from the same origin.
In a recent case, an independent soil expert told court that the minimum amount of soil needed to carry a comparative analysis is 10 grams. One way to test the truthfulness of expert evidence is to seek or subject the evidence to the opinion of another independent expert in that particular field. Why did Godi’s lawyers not seek the opinion of an independent ballistic expert and a soil scientist?
Godi disowned the shoes and claimed they were of a bigger size than the one he puts on, which is size 39. Godi’s lawyers faulted the trial judge for assuming that size 39 and 42 were in the same range. Courts of Law are governed by principles, precedence, laws and guidelines, which if not strictly adhered to will lead to miscarriage of justice. One of the guiding principles in criminal law is that when there are any doubts in any matter in court, these doubts must be resolved in favour of the accused or the appellant if the case goes to appellate court. There was doubt as to whether the pair of shoes recovered from Godi’s house actually belonged to Godi. Why was this doubt not resolved in Godi’s favour?
Telephone printouts
Court used Godi’s telephone printouts to place him at the scene of crime. A telecommunications expert told court that a mast or Base station on a telephone print out means that the caller is within a radius of 30 kilometers but not exactly at a place. Godi told Court he was in Kampala, at the National Theatre, watching a play. Court however concluded that Godi was within the 30 kilometer radius which included the scene of crime.
There was therefore doubt as to Godi’s exact location that evening. Why again was this not resolved in Godi’s favour? The same question will also be raised with respect to the identification of the car at the scene of crime. The eye witness told court that the car that knocked him and his motorcycle had 4 doors. Godi’s car had two doors, excluding the emergency exit. The sizes of the two cars are very different.
One issue that came up during Godi’s trial was that of Godi’s laptop that Rehema had carried from Godi’s house on Entebbe Road to her parent’s home on Martin Road in Old Kampala.
The laptop appears to have had confidential files that were unfriendly to the Government. One witness told Court “I saw the pictures on the laptop……(one) picture was that of Godi with Kony in the bush. Other soldiers with dreadlocks were present. There were messages that the rebels should not give up. The message was from Godi to the rebels”. Godi told court that he indeed took pictures with Kony and his rebels but this was during the peace talks between the rebels and the Uganda Government.
The trial judge made note of the contents of the laptop when he summed up his judgment. He concluded;
“Motive is generally irrelevant in a criminal prosecution but may be useful since a person in his normal faculties would not commit a crime without reason or motive……The possibility that Godi was inclined to eliminate Rehema over the rebel material in the laptop and also to get a new woman in his house is not remote.”
What the newspapers said then
New Vision. On Friday, December 12, 2008, the newspaper carried out a story on its front page entitled ‘Rehema knelt down for mercy but killer shot her – Witness”.
The New Vision reporters travelled to Lukojja village in Mukono District where Rehema’s body was recovered and interviewed several eye witness in the area about the tragedy. The witnesses said they heard Rehema repeatedly screaming and calling out a name “Richard” as the assailant ran after her. A housewife in the village said she heard a woman screaming as she disembarked from a car. She was repeatedly calling out Richard’s name as she moved close to her house.
“My husband and I came out’ the woman said. ‘The woman came straight to our verandah and stood near us. A medium sized gentleman who wore a long sleeved light blue shirt followed her. They exchanged words in a language spoken by people from the northern part of the country.” The village chairman who lived about 50 meters from the scene of the murder reported that he had received information from boda-boda cyclists that a man abandoned a car in motion to chase a woman. He was told that the moving car knocked two boda-boda cyclists leaving them with minor injuries before it stopped by the roadside.
Daily Monitor. The Daily Monitor of December 15, 2008 reported that the then Arua District Police Commander could not confirm reports in intelligence circles that a cell phone handset that was used by Rehema minutes before she was killed was found in Arua shortly after her death.
Using a Global Positioning System (GPS), a combined security team managed to trace the handset’s serial number after it had been activated with a different telephone line which was being used by another suspect, whose whereabouts were unknown. The discovery of Rehema’s handset in Arua seemed to corroborate information by a security officer, who was part of the team investigating the murder, that Rehema’s assailants drove from Mukono to Arua on the night she was killed.
Why were these leads not followed up? And why was evidence pointing to these facts not brought before court by the defense lawyers directly or during cross-examination?
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