In the second 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 and Naome Nyangweso said while on the stand.
Molly is facing trial together with her two 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 14, 15 and 16 told the court.
PW14
This particular witness requested not to have her name mentioned in the media. She testified on May 13. She’s a news editor, translator and transcriber with UBC. She holds a degree in Development Studies with specialisation in Communication, a diploma in Public Service Station Management, a multitude of certificates, including one in ‘Artistic Elements of Speech’. She has been translating and transcribing for more than 20 years, and her speciality is English, Luganda and Swahili languages. She told court that on April 22, 2024, a request for ‘transcription and interpretation’ was made from Jinja Road Police Station to the managing director of UBC. It was received on the same day. The request came with two flash disks containing both audio and visual material, and her task was to watch and listen, then transcribe. She did her task and sent a signed report of her work to police.
This particular court session had graphic, chilling imagery as the prosecution led by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Samali Wakooli played footage of police’s reconstruction of the crime scene using two individuals who are also charged. The two individuals weren’t at the Katangas’ home when the incident that led to Henry’s death happened, but were first responders. One is Patricia Kakwanzi, a daughter of the couple and Charles Otai, a medical personnel who has worked with the family for years.
Through a combination of video footage and written transcription, court was taken through the house as the two individuals separately narrated their version of events on the fateful morning of November 2, 2023. The couple occupied the top floor of a palatial house at Chwa II road in Mbuya. This floor has two adjoining bedrooms. It’s unclear whether they used both as their master bedroom.
According to Patricia’s narration, backed up by Otai, Henry was found in a pool of blood on the couple’s bed, head leaning against a mosquito net, with bullet holes on both sides of the head, brains splattered on the net, with a gun beside him.
Molly was found in the bathroom of the adjoining bedroom, hunched over in a corner, surrounded by her blood and muttering, barely audibly, Runyankore words: ‘abaana bangye’ (my children!). Her panicked daughter Patricia, on looking at the deep injuries on her head, thought those were brains leaking out of her skull.
According to the medical personnel, Otai, who was asked by detective Bibiana Akong, whether these injuries could have been as a result of cuts, he said they were most likely a result of repeated banging on the back of her head that resulted in the skin splitting in various places and detaching from the skull. Court heard that it is the mix of blood and fat tissue that had initially got Katanga’s daughter to think that her brains were leaking out.
Otai said both of Molly’s arms were cut and broken and ‘were only attached to the rest of the body by skin and muscle, otherwise broken bones were visible’. She had lost so much blood that an immediate transfusion was needed. She was stabilised then rushed to IHK hospital in an ambulance-with her daughter driving behind it-for further management.
As for Henry, Otai said, he found him on the bed with a bullet hole on either side of the head. He quickly established that Henry was dead because no pulse was felt. Otai established that the cause was most likely a gunshot wound, and he asked Patricia where the gun was. She had removed it. He asked her to bring it back and place it where she had found it, which, according to her, was beside her father. Otai then sent for gauze and plaster and tried to close the two bullet holes that were oozing blood and brain. He also sent for a mattress so he could get Henry’s body off the bed and straighten it in anticipation of ‘rigor mortis.’ This, according to him, is standard medical procedure.
Otai also asked whether Patricia had called police, which she had done a while back, but they hadn’t yet come. He got his phone and frantically called the officer in-charge of Bugolobi police post, who informed him that he was organising his team to go to the Katanga residence. Indeed, police showed up soon after.
Mr Jonathan Muwaganya led the evidence-in-chief, and defence attorney MacDusman Kabega did a quick, incisive cross-examination during which he asked why her report didn’t have her name or date it was done. The report also didn’t mention who gave her the flash disks, and wasn’t signed by the reviewers. She also told court, under cross-examination, that she didn’t know who recorded the video and put it on the flash disks.
Michael Jackson Okello
A scene of crime (SoC) examiner with 11 years of experience, Okello is attached to the Police Forensics Directorate at Naguru, in the Department of Criminal Detection. He’s second in command of the Evidence Response Team. He narrated that on November 10, 2023, he was at Naguru and received a call from his supervisor, SP Damian Sserungogi, who asked him to pick up a camera and join the team at the scene of crime at Chwa II road, Mbuya, to investigate a suspected murder.
Okello found a team of CID officers, including DSP Akong. Akong briefed him on what they were to do and that witnesses were willing to state what they saw at the SoC. His role was to capture the interviews and witness narrations on video, a Sony Camcorder. He prepared a video identifier: date and time, case reference, activity, camera type, person taking video and signature.
DSP Akong prepared the witnesses and led the interviews. They shot on November 10, 2023. Okello disclosed how he saved the footage and transferred it to flash disks and rewritable DVDs. He talked about how he labelled them per individual and indicated the hours each of them run. He also said how he handed the flash disks to the investigating officer (IO) and retained the DVDs for laboratory purposes.
Asked how he would identify this evidence, he said the video identifier had his name and signature. Prosecution then prayed to have the materials tendered as PID 40 and 41, to which the defence had no objection. They also prayed to tender three videos: George Amanyire’s, Otai’s and Patricia’s, as PE 48, 49, and 50, respectively.
PW16
On Tuesday, May 20, 2025, court concluded hearing the evidence in chief, cross-examination and re-exam of the 16th prosecution witness, PW16, a station manager at UBC Radio, a role she has filled for 15 years. She has 20 years of transcription experience at that workplace.
She translated and transcribed Mr Amanyire’s scene reconstruction interview conducted with police officer Akong. Amanyire has been a shamba boy for the Katangas for over six years and was at the residence when the incident that led to the death of Henry occurred.
Amanyire narrated that on the morning of November 2, 2023, he woke up, headed to the yard and started washing Henry’s car. Around 7am, he heard loud noises coming from the couple’s bedroom. He said in Rutoro that it sounded like Henry was beating his wife, who was crying loudly. He rushed up and knocked on the bedroom door. The beating temporarily stopped. Henry asked who was at the door. Amanyire identified himself and Henry told him to go away. Amanyire went back to his car washing duties. CCTV footage presented in court weeks earlier showed this part.
According to Amanyire, Henry resumed beating his wife and she started crying out loudly again. Amanyire called the couple’s two daughters to come to the residence. They don’t stay far from their parents’ home on Chwa II Road. Amanyire then went back up to knock and stop the fighting. Again, he was sent back, and the beating continued.
He tried the third time again, but this time, he went with a woman who lived in the house, whose name is Kayenje. They knocked on the door, the beating paused, and Henry asked: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ Kayenje answered: ‘Martha’, the couple’s daughter, who is also charged. Kayenje was lying, perhaps in the hope that her invoking the name of their daughter would get Henry to stop the beating and open the door. He ignored them and continued beating his wife, who continued crying loudly.
Amanyire heard what he thought was the sound of a breaking glass and a voice calling him. He rushed upstairs, found a trail of blood from the master bedroom to the adjoining one. He heard a faint voice call him, saying: ‘Help me, I’m out of blood, I’m going to die.’ He entered the room, into the bathroom, where he found Molly naked, in a pool of blood, arms broken, hands held to the rest of the arms only by skin, skull cracked and blood gushing out of it. He walked back ‘out of respect for his boss because she was naked’, he said. She called him back and asked that he call her daughters to take her to hospital. He said he already had, but called again anyway.
Amanyire said from the blood pattern, she probably leaned against the wall, crawled on the floor to ‘safety’ (forensics confirmed it was her blood). The daughters arrived soon after and organised for her onward transfer to hospital.