The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
SPECIAL REPORT | ANTHONY NATIF | As recorded in court, in the case Uganda Vs Molly Katanga and adapted from @TonyNatif on X.
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Yesterday, before Her Lordship Rosette Comfort Kania, we had what one can playfully call an anti-climactic moment: “Call Log-Gate”.
You might recall that in July when DW3 was last on the stand, Chief State Attorney Jonathan Muwaganya put it to him that while he said he had treated Mrs Katanga for orthopedic injuries, he had not been at IHK at the time he said he had operated on her.
The senior consultant orthopaedic surgeon insisted he was at IHK.
Muwaganya stuck to his guns and confronted him with what he called call logs from 2nd Nov 2023, which he said showed the Doctor wasn’t at IHK.
He informed Her Lordship that the state had secured a court order, served it on MTN Uganda and secured DW3’s KYCs as well as the call logs.
He read DW3 an entry at around 10am whose cell tower had been Nakasero B and put it to him that at that time, the Doctor was in Nakasero.
The defense called the document “meaningless, incomplete, unclear and easily doctored” and said the court needed a competent witness to help it understand these logs. They said such a witness wasn’t Muwaganya and neither was it their witness to whom the state intended to put the questions.
They questioned the court order used to secure the impugned call logs, why they were not party to the application, why the state didn’t disclose this information upon receipt and also wondered why the state was only revealing information for one day and not the entire stretch between 15th Oct- mid November 2023.
UgandaVsMollyKatanga
Yesterday, before Her Lordship Rosette Comfort Kania, we had what one can playfully call an anti-climactic moment; “Call Log-Gate”.
You might recall that in July when DW3 was last on the stand, Chief State Attorney, Mr Jonathan Muwaganya put it to him that… https://t.co/mtLjBmuflg pic.twitter.com/rh2krKR5db
— Anthony Natif (@TonyNatif) September 4, 2026
The state response was to the effect that they were only interested in the fateful day when Mr Katanga lost his life and when Mrs Katanga was rushed to hospital for urgent medical care.
Justice Kania ruled for the state and allowed them to put the questions to the witness. She said if the defense had any qualms with it, they’d bring those up during re-exam.
She also advised the defense to go authenticate the document. It’s on that note that the court ended then. (See frame 1)
Then yesterday, the state brought to court a bigger document that they say they extracted the pages that they’d sought to use in the previous session.
The defense, that stopped short of calling the documents forged, asked why the documents don’t tally and why they’re different from the usual call log format.
JM: My Lord what happens is once….once, my Lord, the information in the telecom is beyond three years, that information is provided as…it’s not synchronized. It’s provided not in chronological order”
Justice Kania to Mr Karuhanga: No, let him clarify, I want to understand
EK: But my Lord we don’t know if he’s telling the truth. He’s not under oath.
Judge: Mr Karuhanga, court gave the defense an opportunity to go and look into this document so that it could help court. So I need to be able to make a decision and I have nothing to rely on so Mr Muwaganya, explain.
JM: My Lord what happens is that once that information is provided, what we have been told, that the law in Uganda requires storage of that data for only three years. Now after three years, the information on the servers is sent back to the mother company in South Africa and so if you must retrieve that information after three years, then that information is given to you in raw form. (He raises the document as if to illustrate the form the state got it)
Justice Kania: And that is the raw form
JM: And this is the raw form, my Lord. This constitutes the raw form of the information. Now, my Lord, if you want to know what happened when, then you must traverse the specific data, my Lord. (Cont’d—-See frame 2)
In rejoinder, the defense reminded the court that 3 years hadn’t passed since the incident at issue. They said, among others, that Mr Muwaganya was peddling falsehoods that should not go unchallenged…
The judge ruled for the state, but inexplicably, the state abandoned the whole thing.
It later emerged in re-exam that the medical file on court record had an entry that showed DW3 at IHK
Court resumes 9:30 today
