The hearing of the murder case against Christopher Okello Onyum, the prime suspect in the killing of four toddlers at Ggaba Early Childhood Development Center, continued last Friday with Dr Rogers Agenda from C-Care Clinic, International Hospital Kampala (IHK), telling the High Court presided over by Justice Alice Komuhangi Khaukha of how he had sought psychiatric assessment and that on probing him, he disclosed that his family never had any history of mental illness. Below is a slightly edited court proceeding.
Evidence led by Chief State Attorney, Jonathan Muwaganya
Muwaganya: What are your full names?
Witness: I am Dr. Rogers Agenda.
Muwaganya: What is your profession?
Dr Agenda: I am a medical doctor and a psychiatrist.
Muwaganya: How old are you?
Dr Agenda: I am 41years old.
Muwaganya: Where do you work?
Dr Agenda: I work with C-Care Clinic, International Hospital Kampala (IHK).
Muwaganya: What do you do at C-Care Clinic?
Dr Agenda: I am a psychiatrist.
Muwaganya: For how long have you worked as a psychiatrist?
Dr Agenda:I have worked as a psychiatrist for the past four years.
Muwaganya: How about in C-Care IHK?
Dr Agenda: The same years, my lord.
Muwaganya: Doctor, what are your academic qualifications?
Dr Agenda: I am a medical doctor, my lord. I hold a Master’s degree in Medicine, specializing in Psychiatry, obtained in 2022 from Makerere University. I also have a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery, obtained in 2010.
Muwaganya: How long have you practiced medicine?
Dr Agenda: I have practiced medicine for the past 16 years now.
Muwaganya: What are your duties as a psychiatric doctor?
Dr Agenda: My lord, as a psychiatric doctor, I receive clients at my mental clinic at C-Care IHK, I carry out psychiatric assessments on the clients, diagnose mental disorders if any, and provide therapy, write psychiatric reports. If any of an individual’s issues are work-related, those reports may be required by the court or for compensation purposes.
Muwaganya: Are you in a position to recognize the accused person (points towards Christopher Okello Onyum)?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord, I recognize him.
Muwaganya: How do you know him?
Dr Agenda: He came one time to C-care IHK as one of my new clients.
Muwaganya: What brought him to C-care IHK?
Dr Agenda: He came after having been referred by the Ministry of Internal Affairs Immigration Department. They had told him to get a sanity medical report to help him obtain citizenship in Uganda.
Muwaganya: Doctor, is this a general or unique requirement applicable to only the accused?
Dr Agenda: My lord, this is a requirement for everyone seeking citizenship in Uganda by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Muwaganya: Did you carry out the assessment on the accused person?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Muwaganya: And after you carried out the assessment, to whom did you give the report?
Dr Agenda: My lord, I gave the report to Mr Okello Onyum Christopher.
Muwaganya: And after that event, did anything else occur in the respect of the work you had done?
Dr Agenda: Recently, C-care IHK got a police request based on one of their exhibits, and that was a report written by me. So they wanted the hospital administration to verify that it was a report written by me, also to verify that it was their headed paper and also that it was their stamp. When this happened, the hospital administrators reached out to me to verify if the said report was actually mine.
Muwaganya: What did you verify?
Dr Agenda: My lord, I verified that the report was actually mine, and the hospital administration, through our CEO, wrote back to the police concerning the same.
Muwaganya: Why is it the CEO who replied to the police request?
Dr Agenda: My lord, it is the policy of the hospital that any external request should be handled at the administration level not at the doctor’s level.
Muwaganya: Before your admin sent out the reply where you required to do anything in respect to the report that you had authored?
Dr Agenda: My lord, after verifying that it was my report, I countersigned it.
Muwaganya: Are you in a position to identify the reply from your facility, the sanity report that you counter-signed, and the police request you are referring to?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Muwaganya: How would you identify the police request, sanity report, and the reply?
Dr Agenda: The police request has their logo on it on the headed paper and was signed by Madam Chelimo.
Muwaganya: How about your sanity report?
Dr Agenda: I identify it by my signature, a C-care IHK stamp, and CK IHK logo
Muwaganya: And the letter forwarding your sanity report?
Dr Agenda:This letter has a CK IHK logo, it has a CEO’s signature Azhar Sundoo it has also been stamped.
Muwaganya: Do you recognize the documents?
Dr Agenda: : Yes my lord
Muwaganya: What are they?
Dr Agenda:The first one is a reply from C-care IHK by our CEO Mr Azhar Sundoo, it was a response to the police dated April 10, 2026.
Muwaganya: What was the subject?
Dr Agenda: The subject was a response to the request for information at Ggaba.
Muwaganya: Does it quote the police reference?
Dr Agenda: Yes my lord, CRB 026/2026 (ref CID / C49/2007 volume 44)
Muwaganya: In short, what was your CEO forwarding?
Dr Agenda: My CEO confirmed that the sanity medical report dated December 30, 2025, in respect to Mr Onyum Christopher Okello was duly issued by International Hospital Kampala Limited and also confirmed that it was authored and signed by me, Dr Rogers Agenda, a psychiatrist, in my capacity as a medical practitioner at the facility.
Muwaganya: Look at the second document.
Dr Agenda: The second document is my sanity report, which I wrote on December 30, 2025.
Muwaganya: And the third document.
Dr Agenda: It is a police request for information to support investigations at Ggaba CRB 026/2026 dated April 9, 2026.
Muwaganya: So, doctor, let’s go to the report that you authored.
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord
Muwaganya: When did you author the report?
Witness: I wrote the report on December 30, 2025.
Muwaganya: Who was your client?
Dr Agenda: My client was Christopher Okello Onyum.
Muwaganya: What other particulars did you take for Mr Christopher Okello Onyum?
Dr Agenda: I noted that Mr Christopher Okello Onyum was a 38-year-old male. He was residing in Bunga.
Muwaganya: Doctor, who was the source of that personal information that you took about your client?
Dr Agenda: Mr Onyum Christopher came to see me personally, so I took all the information from him alone. He told me he was a resident of Bunga, single, Christian by religion, and by that time, he had a plan to settle in Uganda and start commercial farming. Based on his request for a sanity report, I carried out a psychiatric interview with him, and after that, I also carried out a mental state examination.
Muwaganya: Doctor, what does this psychiatric entail?
Dr Agenda: It entails asking the client many times open ended questions. The interview entails asking various psychiatric questions to determine if this client has any mental disorder.
Muwaganya: So in this case, what did you do?
Dr Agenda: Upon asking him those questions, Mr Okello told me the following. That he had no history of having excessive sadness, no history of loss of interest in pleasurable activities, no history of excessive fears or excessive worries, no history of excessive happiness or increase in oriented related activities.
Muwaganya: Why were these questions important?
Dr Agenda: My lord, these questions help us to establish various mental disorders, if any, in any client that comes before us. These questions are key to the various mental disorders. For example, when I ask a client if they have a history of excessive sadness, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, I am trying to determine if they have depression. If I ask about excessive fears or worries, I am trying to determine if you have an anxiety disorder. The question asked about excessive happiness or increase in oriented related activities. I am trying to determine if a client has bipolar affective disorder.
Muwaganya: Other than that, what else did he reveal to you, or did you ask him?
Dr Agenda: He also told me that he had no history of hearing voices or seeing things other people could not see. When I asked my lord, I am trying to enlist if you have allusions. He told me he has no history of using drugs like cannabis; however, he occasionally uses alcohol, which enables me to find out if he uses drugs. That helps us to identify if someone has a substance use disorder. He also told me he has no history of having had any traumatic experience in his life. That is a question that can help me enlist if someone has what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The client told me that this was his first visit to mental health personnel in his life.
Muwaganya: And how did you reflect that in your report?
Dr Agenda: This is the index or first visit to mental health personnel, and he had never taken any psychiatric medications.
Muwaganya: What else?
Dr Agenda: The client disclosed that he was a patient of a chronic illness of sickle cell disease and was regularly taking medication for that purpose.
Muwaganya: Anything else?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord, Mr Onyum told me that he was a 3rd born of 4 children, and his parents are alive and they are well. He told me there was no history of any mental illness in their family.
Muwaganya: Apart from what your client disclosed to you in the interview, did you proceed to carry out an independent examination on him?
Dr Agenda: I proceeded to carry out a mental state examination. From this examination, I noted that Mr Okello was a middle-aged man, he looked kept, was well-nourished.
Muwaganya: What do you consider to declare someone well-nourished in your medical profession?
Dr Agenda: He looked healthy; he never appeared sick in any way that time I saw him.
Muwaganya: Ok you say he was well nourished, proceed.
Dr Agenda: My lord, I note that he was calm, he kept eye contact, and he had no odd behaviors of any sort.
Muwaganya: Why was this important for you to observe?
Dr Agenda: My lord, odd behaviors help us to know if this person could be acting under the influence of hearing voices in his head or could be seeing things that others are not seeing. I also noted that his speech was coherent, of normal volume, rate, and tone. I noted that his thoughts were logical with no preoccupations, no delusions, and no overvalued ideas. He had an euthymic mood, which we basically call a normal mood. This was congruent with affect, meaning that both the mood and affect are in agreement. Affect is your current emotions. Okello had no Perceptual disturbances, or cognitive disturbances and also had no cognitive disturbances.
Muwaganya: Am still going to tell you to help the court appreciate what you mean by perceptual disturbances, or cognitive disturbances?
Dr Agenda: Perceptual disturbances align with normal sessions for example you are hearing voices others are not hearing them, you are seeing things which others are not seeing, while cognitive disturbances we are looking your memory, attention, concentration, you general knowledge of what is happening around your ability to judge what is around you, your ability do basic mathematics and if you are able to tell the time or year we are in and able to tell who you are as a person.
Muwaganya: Now, doctor, why is this particular assessment in your mental health examination about this aspect of perceptual or cognitive disturbances important to you as a profession?
Dr Agenda: For the mental health examination, as a professional, I will be able to conclude whether someone has a mental illness or not at the time.
Muwaganya: Yes, proceed with your findings.
Dr Agenda: At that time, Mr Onyum Christopher was sane and mentally fit to leave and work in Uganda.
Muwaganya: Did you sign off on the report?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Muwaganya: Was it stamped?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord
Muwaganya: What was the date of signing and stamping?
Dr Agenda: I signed it on that very day, 30th December 2025, and the stamp was of that very date.
Muwanganya: My lord, I pray to tender the report, together with the forwarding letter and the request letter admitted as exhibits.
Judge: Defence, do you have any objection?
Richard Kumbuga (Defense lawyer): No objection, my lord.
Judge: Assessment report of Christopher Okello dated 30 December 2025 authored by Dr Rogers.
Cross examination
Kumbuga: Doctor, are you aware that the history of illness of this suspect is already on the court record?
Judge: What was the question?
Kumbuga: So, doctor, the reason why you interacted with the suspect was seeking citizenship in Uganda, is that true?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Kumbuga: And this kind of citizenship is based on mental sanity?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Kumbuga: Are you aware that your client was denied Ugandan citizenship?
Dr Agenda: No, my lord
Kumbuga: Ok, in your report, you talked of alcohol that he was taking some, did you extract any blood samples to know the content of alcohol in his body?
Dr Agenda: No, my lord.
Kumbuga: Did you also test his blood to see if there are any other substances in his body?
Dr Agenda: No, my lord.
Kumbuga: Apart from him telling you that his family there is no history of mental illness, did you have any other mechanism to establish whether it was right?
Dr Agenda: We have mechanisms. The psychiatric interview and mental state examination give us a lot of information to ascertain if someone is of sound mind or not.
Kumbuga: Doctor, you have not answered my question. My question is, did you verify from his family that apart from him, there is no history of mental illness?
Dr Agenda: No, my lord.
Kumbuga: You have talked about the question being open ended questions, will I be right to say that in your report, there is nowhere it suggests that you asked him those questions?
Dr Agenda: My lord, the report I wrote summarizes what I got in the interview.
Kumbuga: So, confirm that those questions actually happened between you and the suspect?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my Lord.
Kumbuga: Did you verify that the story he was telling you was right or wrong?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Muwaganya: My lord, the Witness is saying he’s not hearing the questions very well because it is raining heavily. Can he go and sit close there?
Judge: It is ok
Kumbuga: With the interview with your client, is it not true that there were no safeguards to determine whether your client was telling the truth or not?
Dr Agenda: It is not true.
Kumbuga: So, doctor, will I be right to say sick cell is one of the underlying causes of mental illness?
Dr Agenda: My lord, I will call it a risk factor, not a direct cause for mental illness.
Kumbuga: So, a risk is one of the causes of mental illnesses.
Judge: Please do not confuse the witness; the witness said it is a risk factor but not a direct cause, so do not mix them, Mr Kumbuga.
Kumbuga: My lord, I just need clarification from him. So if a sick cell is a risk factor leading to mental illness.
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.
Kumbuga: So your report is dated December 30, 2025?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord
Kumbuga: In that report, as it is dated, can you be able to subsequently determine whether your client was normal?
Dr Agenda: My lord, this report verifies that the client is of sound mind.
Judge: Ok his question was as of 30 December 2025. Would you know his mental health after this date? Is that the question?
Kumbuga: Yes, my lord.
Dr Agenda: My lord, this was a one-time contact with this client
Kumbuga: So, you confirm you cannot know his mental status after 30th December 2025?
Dr Agenda: Yes, my lord.