Big Story: court sets free Muslim jailed clerics led by Amir Kamoga

Big Story: court sets free Muslim jailed clerics led by Amir Kamoga. Whisper Eye Reports

The Court of Appeal has set free Jailed Tabliq leader Sheikh Muhammad Yunus Kamoga and others after their Appeal by Sheikh Kamogo.

Tabliq leader, Sheikh Muhammad Yunus Kamoga, was in 2017 sent behind bars for life over terrorism.

Other convicts who have been set free after the Court of Appeal verdict are; Sheikhs Siraje Kawooya, Murta Mudde Bukenya, Fahad Kalungi, Abdu Salaam Ssekayanja alias Kasim Mulumba and Yusuf Kakande.

In 2017, the International Criminal Division of the High Court presided over by justices Ezekiel Muhanguzi, Percy Night Tuhaise and Jane Kiggundu convicted the appellants of terrorism, but cleared them of the charge of murder of sheikhs Mustafa Bahiga and Hassan Kirya.

The court sentenced Kawooya, Kamoga, Mudde Bukenya and Kalungi to imprisonment for the rest of their lives.

Ssekayanja and Kakande were sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

Being dissatisfied with their conviction and sentence, they petitioned the Court of Appeal requesting to trash their conviction.

In their appeal, the group listed 10 grounds which they want the Court of Appeal to base on to set aside their conviction.

And today September 2, 2020, they have received the much waited Justice since 2015.

According to their memorandum of appeal, they claim that the lower court failed to properly evaluate the evidence before them as they applied to the law of terrorism.

And basing on their memorandum of Appeal, the Court has set them free from prison and acquitted the treason charges.

They also blamed the trial court for relying on what they describe as uncorroborated circumstantial evidence that led them to a wrong decision.

They further blamed the trial judges for convicting them of the offence of terrorism on the basis of the evidence of fliers, which as of itself did not discharge the prosecution of proof for the offence, thereby arriving at a wrong decision.

They blamed the trial justices of convicting them for the offence of terrorism on the basis of the same evidence that the court used to acquit them for the offences of murder and attempted murder.

The appellants faulted the trial court for sentencing Kawooya, Kamoga, Bukenya and Kalungi on what they described as an illegal, severe, harsh and unconscionable principle of their leadership status in their Muslim sect.

Although the DPP maintained that there was sufficient evidence to support their conviction on both terrorism and murder charges, the Court of Appeal has set them free.

The acquitted Muslim leaders were linked to the killing of fellow Muslim clerics by the state.