In the third part of our summary, capturing what all 25 witnesses said in a case where Molly Katanga is being tried for the murder of her husband, Henry Katanga, on November 2, 2023, we capture what experts from the Uganda Police Force said while on the stand.
Molly Katanga is facing trial together with her daughters, Martha Katanga and Patricia Kakwanzi, as well as a medical worker, Charles Otai and long-serving Katanga shamba boy, George Amanyire. The latter four are facing charges relating to evidence tampering and being accessories after the fact.
The court will render a decision on February 19, 2026, as to whether the prosecution has established a prima facie case against the accused persons. Below is a summary of what witnesses 11, 12 and 13 told the court.
Derrick Nasawali
He is the lead ballistics expert in the Uganda Police Force. He tested the gun that fired the shot that killed Henry and told the court that indeed the gun in the court’s possession was the killer gun. The killer gun, according to Mr Nasawali, was a Black Zastava Pistol, serial number: UG 1622200061 CZ99.
There had been earlier arguments in this case when defence lawyer MacDusman Kabega put it to Andrew Mubiru, the director of Forensics Services in the Uganda Police Force, that police form 17A indicated that the killer gun was a CZ999, not CZ99, which is a completely different gun.
Mr Nasawali was unequivocal on this. He said it was a CZ99, and the extra 9 was merely a clerical error.
Mr Nasawali accounted for 30 rounds of ammunition found in the Katanga household, including a bent projectile that he said is most likely the one that killed Henry.
He said the projectile was bent, perhaps, because it hit a hard surface on exiting Henry’s head. He pointed to a bullet mark on the ceiling of the Katanga bedroom as a place where this projectile most likely hit.
Mr Nasawali admitted under cross-examination that it was doubtful Molly could have fired the fatal shot, considering her fractured arms and broken index fingers.
He noted that only a highly trained individual could fire a gun in such a state, which Molly was not. He could not rule out suicide as a possibility in Henry’s death.
Mr Nasawali acknowledged that the evidence, a single shot fired with no sign of additional bullets, did not conclusively prove homicide.
Mr Nasawali touched upon certain aspects of gunshot residue (GSR) analysis but acknowledged that he was not an expert in this field.
The defence tried to expose flaws in the reliability of the GSR results. Nasawali admitted GSR elements could come from common sources like perfumes, lotion, or hospital gloves; not just firearms, undermining the reliability of positive test results.
Mr Nasawali used testing methods that did not align with the 2023 police crime scene manual. When pressed by defence attorney Elison Karuhanga, he dismissed the manual as outdated, but the defence countered that his superior, Mr Mubiru, testified that the manual was still in use, highlighting procedural inconsistencies.
When challenged, Mr Nasawali admitted he had not been formally appointed as a ballistics expert by the minister through a statutory instrument, as required by law. The defence, therefore, prayed to strike all his expert testimony from the record.
Dr Jaffar Kisitu, PhD
He is a Superintendent of Police. He is the deputy head of the Department of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive Residue Analysis (CDRNe-A) in the Directorate of Forensic Analysis in the Uganda Police Force. He is the lead examiner in the department.
He is an Erasmus Mundus scholar who holds a Master’s of Forensic Science, jointly studied at the universities of Cordoba (Spain), ISCESM (Portugal) and Lincoln (UK). He also holds a Doctorate in Computational Toxicology from the University of Konstanz in Germany.
Dr Kisitu told the court that he conducted GSR analysis on the samples taken from the gun as well as Molly’s hands and clothes.
GSR analysis confirms discharge to the firearm in the vicinity of the individual on whom residue is found. It doesn’t prove with certainty that said individual fired the gun.
Dr Kisitu said GSR analysis works by identifying unique particles from primer; lead, barium, antimony. He said analysts can test for either inorganic or organic components of gunpowder.
Dr Kisitu told court that he tested for components of gunpowder but admitted that he did not have a clearly written and approved manual (work instructions) for conducting the experiments for which he was in court.
He instead told the court that he used a student’s research paper on soil samples in Amuru District as his laboratory protocol for doing GSR analysis.
He said he found GSR on Molly’s dress but the same dress, oddly, didn’t have any of her DNA. The Katanga shamba boy Amanyire’s statement on court record stated that he found Molly naked and bleeding profusely on the floor of a room adjacent to the couple’s bedroom, so it’s unclear as to which dress the police tested.
Dr Kisitu admitted to not finding any GSR on Molly’s hands but on re-examination by Chief State Attorney Jonathan Muwaganya, he said he found some components of GSR on one hand and other components on another.
He then told presiding Judge Rosette Kania that a combination of the two could then prove that Molly Katanga had GSR on her hands.
The defence, which was allowed to cross examine him after the re-exam, got him to admit that there is no laboratory standard procedure to back up the method he used to draw this conclusion.
He conceded that the method he used to test for organic components of GSR wasn’t approved by any major forensics body in the world.
Dr Kisitu said the presence of GSR on an individual wasn’t conclusive proof that said individual touched or fired that gun. It was merely proof that the individual was in close proximity of a discharged gun.
He also said the gun powder as swabbed from the muzzle of the alleged killer gun had no exact match with what was found on any of the tested items.
Resty Alexandra Nazziwa
She is a criminal toxicologist at the Directorate of Government Analytical Laboratory (DGAL), under Criminalistics and Lab Services.
Ms Nazziwa told Justice Kania that she holds a BSc in Industrial Chemistry and an MSc in Chemistry and has been a Government Analyst since 2017.
During an examination-in-chief led by a calm, measured Chief State Attorney, Anna Kiiza, Ms Nazziwa told the court that her role entails receiving, preserving, extracting, analysing materials, then drafting reports and providing expert witness in courts of law if/when needed.
Ms Nazziwa’s laboratory received samples of Henry’s stomach contents, liver, kidney, bile, blood and vitreous humour, with the aim of conducting toxicology tests to rule out intoxication.
In a swift examination-in-chief, cross-examination and re-examination, the court learnt the following:
Firstly, Henry didn’t have any intoxicants in his body. No alcohol, no cocaine, no cannabis, no heroin, no methamphetamines, no benzodiazepines, no barbiturates, no antidepressants.
He was basically fully sober when he, per the defence’s account, beat his wife and cracked her skull, broke her bones in both arms, etc, a beating that sent her to International Hospital-Kampala (IHK) for a litany of reconstructive surgeries that had her get more than 50 stitches to the head.
It was during this convalescence, while she was fighting for her own life, that the State charged her with murder on November 21, 2023.
Secondly, Ms Nazziwa’s testimony made it clear that police were investigating suicide, but didn’t pursue it much further. She had a police form 17A that indicated the authorities were investigating the possibility that Henry ‘shot himself after a domestic wrangle.’
It remains unclear as to why police dropped this line of investigation and opted for homicide.
Thirdly, in what looked like an attempt to understand why investigators in this case opted to use the police Forensics Laboratory for most of the investigations as opposed to the licensed and fully internationally certified/accredited DGAL, defence attorney Karuhanga asked Ms Nazziwa whether they had a department that deals with firearms and GSR, computer forensics, etc, to which she answered affirmatively.
The police lab is under-resourced, isn’t fully licensed or ISO certified. This has been a recurring theme in this case, with the defence team accusing the state of opting for an unlicensed laboratory with the aim of ‘cooking up results’ as opposed to going with DGAL, which is used in most such cases and has the capabilities and licences to conduct all required forensics tests in this case.
Forensics and Ballistics
Forensic science is the application of science principles and methods to support decision-making related to rules or law, generally specifically criminal and civil law.
During criminal investigation in particular, it is governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure. It is a broad field utilizing numerous practices such as the analysis of DNA, fingerprints, bloodstain patterns, firearms, ballistics, toxicology, microscopy, and fire debris analysis.
Forensic scientists collect, preserve, and analyze evidence during the course of an investigation.
Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets and the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
A ballistic body is a free-moving body with momentum, which can be subject to forces such as those exerted by pressurized gases from a gun barrel or a propelling nozzle, normal force by rifling, and gravity and air drag during flight.
The earliest known ballistic projectiles were stones, spears, and the throwing stick.