KAMPALA_UGANDA/NEWSDAY: Vocal lawyer fondly known as legal rebel, Isaac Ssemakadde has said city businessman Hassan Bassajjabala is ripe for a jail sentence of 45 years after claims of forgery against him.
And in line with his line of argument Ssemakadde as slapped a three-day ultimatum to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) JAne Frances Abodo to restart a retrial process of the scandalous businessman, else both will be liable for complicity in corruption.
It follows Abodo’s October 2022 discharge of Hassan and his brother Muzamir Bassajjabala in a grand forgery involving utterance of a court judgment purportedly issued in October 2010 that was used to aid payment of Shs.142 billion in a dubious compensation.
Bassajjabalaba purported the judgement arose from a hoax court case involving five of his companies as plaintiffs against the Attorney General after government repossessed four markets and the Constitution Square that he used to manage after contracts from Kamapala City management.
The case had dragged on for 11 years until in October 2022 when Abodo elected to dismiss the charges of forgery, uttering a false court document and conspiracy to defeat tax citing death of witnesses. Conspiracy to feat tax attracts 5 years in jail on conviction while forgery takes 10 years and uttering bfalse documents attracts an equal sentence.
“That Basajjabalaba uttered the forged documents to three offices, it means thirty years plus the fifteen from the other two cases. Its a total of 45 years good on him,” Ssemakadde said.
Ssemakadde through his Legal Brains Trust NGO, has challenged the decision to discharge the Basaajjabalaba brothers wondering in a press conference at Club Obligato in Kampala on Thursday afternoon wondering how Abodo reached the conclusion yet among all the lineup of witnesses, it is only the former Attorney General Peter Nyombi who has since died, but even then he was a witness acting on behalf of the office he held.
Ssemakadde said that multiple government agencies including the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), the office of the Solicitor General, the Attorney General, former High court registrar now judge Eudes Keitirima and others are among the authorities who are witnesses in Basajjabala’s forgery scandal.
“And in our own case against Basajjabalaba, we have exhibits that can get him in jail, we have seen living witnesses and we took the DPP through them. There is a letter of Keitirima we have used it in the constitutional court and supreme court, start with him. URAwrote, the solicitos general wrote, all those documents and the authors are still living,” Ssemakadde said.
He said that the spark of the saga was Basajjabalaba’s refusal to pat a Shs.20bn tax to URA.”Do we know whether they settled” Did URA get the money? So when the DPP says that she has lost interest, on whose behalf? URA has independence on matters of tax. We know they haven’t settled yet.”
Ssemakadde said that Basajjabalaba keeps calling him asking how much money he would like to receive in case to leave pursui of the case.
“He knows he is culpable. The attorney general of the time, Hon Peter Nyombi issued a verdict of 12 pages and 34 paragraphs saying that Basajjabalaba forged a court order and he did this forgery within our premises, under our watch. So we want him to face the full consequences from the judiciary. So what does the DPP mean that she has negotiated and concluded this conflict? : Ssemakadde wondered.
He said there is still a case in the Supreme Court where they seek several remedies.
“So Jane France, who is the dead witness and he was buried with all the exhibits? Witnesses die every day and mitigations continue. What really happened. For us we have the evidence here and there is nothing special about this case. It can be tried and convicted in one day but our system of rule of law has been degraded by officers to whom it is just a supermarket for their groceries. We don’t understand how a case as clear as this one can’t be tried”.
On 17 Feb 2012 Semakadde started legal proceedings against Hassan Basajjabalaba in relation to these scams. In reply the chief government lawyer conceded that there had been forgery of a court order by Basajjabalaba to answer for their deeds.
On 9 Jan 2013 a private prosecution was commenced at Buganda Road court where a one Bernard Kakande sued the Basajjabala brothers. On 16 Jan 2013, DPP took over the case, got it dismissed and contemporaneously re-charged the duo at the swanky Anti-Corruption Court. They were denied bail.
In 2013 Abodo was the prosecutor at the anti-corruption and oversaw the takeover of the Basajjabalaba case. In 2022 she endorsed its withdrawal.
Ssemakadde said that between 2013 to 2018 the Basajjabalaba corruption case stalled due to “judicial racketeering”, abuse of the vast power given to the Deputy Hief Justice at the time, Steven Kavuma who used to direct “the sittings of the court and the matters to be disposed of at those sittings”.
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