In the seventh 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 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 22 and 23 told the court.
Dr Moses Byaruhanga
The Assistant Inspector General of Police heads the Directorate of Health Services in the Uganda Police Force and also happens to be a forensic pathologist. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine from Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), a Masters of Science from Makerere University as well as a Diploma in forensics medicine from the University of Johannesburg and a Diploma in Public Administration and Management from Uganda Management Institute (UMI). His job entails medical examination of victims and suspects, overseeing exhumations, post-mortem examinations, testifying in courts as well as administrative work.
Dr Byaruhanga testified in August 2025 that on November 9, 2023, he received a request from Jinja Road Police Station to examine Molly Katanga who was at IHK receiving treatment. The request was to the effect that in the course of a domestic fight between Henry Katanga and his wife, Molly, the former had been shot in the head and died and that his wife was admitted to IHK. The request indicated that police were investigating a murder or suicide.
Dr Byaruhanga told the court that he communicated with Dr Justine Onen at IHK and informed him that in the afternoon of the same day, he would be going to examine Molly who was under the care of Dr Onen.
He went to the hospital together with Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) George Mpuungu, the head of homicide in police. They found Molly on level 2 of the hospital. He said he found several people, including security personnel, and Geoffrey Kamuntu who ushered them in and said they were expecting them.
Molly was in the VIP section which had two rooms, a visitors’ room and a patient’s room further inside. He entered her room, where he found her seated on the bed. He asked if he could examine her in the presence of her attending doctors, which she accepted. He said he found her conscious, responding to directives and well oriented in time, place and person.
Molly told Dr Byaruhanga that she recalls being involved in a domestic quarrel with her husband which ended in a fight but she didn’t remember anything else after that. His findings indicated that he saw generalised swellings on the back of the left hand with two in-situ stainless steel pins used to fix two fractures in the second and third metacarpal bones. He found two stitched wounds on the back of the left hand with deep ecchymoses, which he called areas of internal bleeding. The tip of Molly’s right small finger was gangrenous and was only held in place by a pin. It was later amputated. He described several areas of internal bleeding all over her arms and even both her shoulders. He said she had multiple stitched wounds on the head, which was a sign of trauma to the head. He said there were signs of medical intervention and that the findings he had were corroborated by the X-ray findings.
He told Justice Rosette Comfort Kania that all the wounds that Molly had were defensive injuries, probably inflicted by repeatedly being beaten with a blunt object. He indicated that but for medical intervention, the injuries could have been fatal. He said he found no other injuries on her chest, abdomen or lower limbs.
The defence in this case insists that Molly was a victim of domestic violence who is fortunate to be alive and that the state should have investigated the possibility of suicide by Mr Katanga who, according to them likely took his life after beating his wife to the verge of death. The forensic pathologist in this case found no other injuries on Mr Katanga save for one close range bullet shot to the head.
During cross examination by Mr MacDusman Kabega, Dr Byaruhanga was unable to tell which type of blunt object might have been used to beat Molly.
Bibiana Akong
The Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), was the lead investigator in this case and her testimony was the longest. She spent weeks on the stand. She’s currently working as the Regional CID, Albertine Region. In 2023, when the death of Henry happened, DSP Akongo was attached to Jinja Road Police Station as the Divisional CID officer. Her roles entailed being overall supervisor of criminal investigations within her jurisdiction, visiting crime scenes with the scene of crime officer(s), Identifying and recovering exhibits, interviewing witnesses and recording statements, interviewing suspects, conducting searches and arrests, among others.
DSP Akongo’s testimony set out to answer questions as to what transpired before and in the aftermath of Henry’s death. She started testifying at the back-end of September 2025. She told court that she had expertise in homicide and had investigated more than 10 cases of shooting to the head. She led investigations at the Katanga residence, oversaw scene reconstruction, went to IHK and also oversaw the search at Henry’s office. She said when she went to IHK, she found Molly seated on her bed in ICU without any life support machine. She said she found her on the phone tweeting. This was different from another officer Aisha Birungi’s testimony where she said she found Molly in the ICU with her hands bandaged to the fingertips.
DSP Akongo said she saw a ladder outside Molly’s room, which according to intelligence was to allegedly facilitate Molly’s escape from hospital. She provided no images or video of the same. She said Henry couldn’t possibly have shot himself because he was right handed and the bullet that killed him entered through the left side. She added that it was impossible for one to shoot themselves at that angle using their weaker hand. Later in the testimony, defence lawyer Elison Karuhanga asked for the killer gun and used it to demonstrate it was possible.
In a very combative cross examination led by Jet Tumwebaze, another defence lawyer, wondered how DSP Akongo, who had no specialised training in homicide investigation, expected the court to believe her claims of expertise. She told court that the specialised course had been discontinued by the time she trained. Mr Tumwebaze, using the evidence of the director of forensics in police, showed that indeed the course was still offered and that DSP Akongo had lied about that.
The defence lawyer said she had no proof of having worked on 10 cases of homicide by shooting, let alone shooting to the head as she had earlier told court. He questioned how the witness could possibly claim to have done more than 10 investigations of murder by shooting to the head when the police crimes reports over the period of and areas of her practice in police might not have that number. He went further to put it to her that even in the sub-region of Karamoja, where guns are as ubiquitous as sticks (enkoni) in his home area Ssembabule, homicides by shooting to the head might not add up to that.
Justice Kania then asked that the witness go back to all the areas of her practice to collect records backing up the number of cases of shooting to the head that she’d handled, ‘then you can grill her on that.’ Not done, Mr Tumwebaze asked whether DSP Akongo had ever had training on gunshot wounds to the head. She said she only trained in the field while working in Rakai. He asked if during that training, she was referred to any books, she said they didn’t refer her to any books.
Mr Tumwebaze then reached for literature on gunshot wounds to the head and at that point she admitted she was not an expert. DSP Akongo was also asked as to whether she found a bullet mark on the floor on the side the bullet ought to have exited if her theory of a left to right shooting was to hold. She said she didn’t see any mark but that it’s possible for a bullet to exit the head and not to leave a mark because it loses momentum. He asked if there was a mark on the ceiling on the left side, which the defence insists was the direction opposite to the prosecution theory. She agreed there was a mark.
To test her theory that the bullet could have lost momentum on exiting Henry’s head and not left a mark, Mr Tumwebaze asked if she knew the velocity of a bullet shot from that particular pistol. She said she didn’t know. He then told her the velocity was akin to that of a jetliner and that the bullet only loses half of that on exit and can actually kill three people lined up side by side. He went further as to question whether she knew how to operate a firearm. The prosecution took umbrage at this.