🔴 Anthony Natif notes from Court: Defense accuses state of presenting illegal evidence

SPECIAL REPORT | ANTHONY NATIF | As recorded in court, in the case ‘Uganda versus Molly Katanga’ and adapted from @TonyNatif on X.

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This matter doesn’t resume until 2/Dec/2025 so the state presents its 25th witness. Till then, we continue to bring you verbatim testimony of PW24, Detective Sergeant David Beteise, who was the investigating officer (IO) and thus a crucial player in this case.

His evidence-in-chief was led by Assistant DPP Samali Wakooli while cross-examination was done by MacDusman Kabega and Elison Karuhanga.

We brought you the first two. It’s to Karuhanga’s cross-examination session that we turn.

Karuhanga was teed up by his colleague Jet Tumwebaze after joking around with the prosecution, he says: “my Lord, my Learned brother Mr Karuhanga…then he points in the direction of the witness.”

Karuhanga stands up and says, ‘For the record, my Lord, Elison Karuhanga.’ He then immediately dives into a fast-paced cross examination.

He always seems to have spent hours doing preparations for every scenario. Within the first few minutes of the cross exam, he had got the witness to admit that he knew of no standing order that allowed Police forensics laboratory to analyze the samples over the Government Analytical Lab.

He put it to him that to the extent that said samples weren’t sent to the government chemist, all that evidence was illegal. This set up a showdown with the prosecution.

EK: Detective Sergeant David Beteise, as a CID Officer (of 27 years), you’re conversant, of course, with police standing orders Volume II, Crime and the CID. Right?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: You’d agree that these are the rules that govern CID investigations. Right?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: And you’d agree that you followed them in this case. Right?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: I have with me parts of the standing orders; I’m going to read for you, and you confirm if this was done. Yah?
He reads section 104 on the need for an IO to ask themselves, before adducing expert evidence of any kind, whether said evidence would carry the case further evidentiary.

He then asks Mr Beteise: in the submission of these items to forensic laboratories, “did you ask yourself if the examination was made, would it carry the case further? Was that the overriding question in your mind?”
Judge Kania: Which regulation?
EK: regulation 104
Muwaganya: Will Mr Karuhanga be kind enough to share with us?
EK: I’ll give you a copy.
DB answers the question in the affirmative; yes, my Lord
EK: he then proceeds to 105: “it is the duty of a supervising officer to ensure, before material is submitted for examination, that the officer in charge of the case has made an intelligent appraisal of the evidence likely to be obtained.”

Is it your evidence that before you went to the mortuary and before you went to the lab, you’d made an intelligent appraisal of the evidence likely to be obtained?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK then goes into the regulation on police form 17 and 17A and how they must accompany any exhibit sent to the government chemist. Can you confirm that apart from yourself, no one else submitted items to the gov’t chemist?
DB: it is only me, my Lord
EK: And can you confirm that all the other police form 17As weren’t submitted to the gov’t chemist?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: Now, regulation 113; (he sends a copy to prosecution) provides that materials submitted to the gov’t chemist will be listed on form 17A and accompanied by a report on form 17. “The orders on the reverse of form 17 relating to collection, preservation and packaging must be faithfully observed.”

Again, you confirm that you’re the only one who submitted items on 17A to the gov’t chemist?
DB: yes, my Lord

EK then gets into reg 117 and form 48A. DB is the only one who filled out that form, requesting for a postmortem.

EK: I want to suggest to you that every single police form submitted to the directorate of forensic services was an illegal police form and what we have in this court is illegal evidence. Do you agree?
DB: I don’t agree with you, my Lord

It’s getting tense in court…

EK: do you have another standing order that allows submission of evidence to the directorate of forensic services? Are you aware of one from your 30 years experience?
DB: my Lord, police form 48A and police form 17A are legal documents…

EK interjects, “We can’t hear you; speak into the microphone.”
DB: My Lord, these are police forms. They’re not my forms. I filled these forms basing on the exhibits which I’d gotten from the postmortem report…
EK: That’s not my question. Maybe let me ask it again: you filled one form 17A. Right?
DB: Yes
EK: And you submitted it to the gov’t chemist. Right?
DB: Yes, my Lord.
EK: But you’re aware that there are other police form 17As filled in this case. Right?
DB: yes
EK: And you’re aware that none of those police forms was submitted to the gov’t chemist. Right?
DB: Yes, my Lord
EK: So my question to you,… I’m putting it to you that every forensic report we have, based on a request on a form 17A is illegal. Do you agree?
DB: I don’t agree with you
EK: Then I asked you, do you have another standing order that allows the directorate of forensic services to do a forensic examination on 17A? Are you aware of one? If you’re not, we move. If you are, you tell us.
DB: I’m not aware, my Lord.
EK: Thank you!

After a brief pause, EK continues: ‘Now, my Lord, if the witness could be given prosecution exhibit 3, which is police form 48A.’

EK: As they’re getting it, can you confirm that when you were filling out PF48A, you were complying with the standing orders?
DB: Yes, my Lord
EK: Can you confirm that that form contains an intelligent appraisal of the evidence? That’s the requirement of the standing orders: that there must be an intelligent appraisal of the evidence
DB: My Lord I don’t get you clearly.
EK again asks him if in filling PF48A, he was complying with said standing orders
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: Now, can you look at what you put under “necessary information” and read it for this court?
DB: ah, my Lord it is alleged that the deceased shot himself after a domestic wrangle
EK: Can you confirm that you filled out that form on the 2nd of Nov 2023?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: At what time?
DB: My Lord, the time is not indicated here. What is indicated is the time we arrived with the body.
EK: By the time you arrived with the body, had you filled out that form?
DB: I arrived with the body then filled the form
EK: Okay, so you filled the form around 13:48 hours on the 2nd of November?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: Can you confirm that is the first document you wrote in regard to this case?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: And the most necessary information you felt the lab should have was that it is alleged that this was a suicide. Correct?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: Now, can you look at prosecution exhibit 109, police form 17A, the one you tendered in? Do you have it?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: Can you confirm that you filled out that police form on 2/Nov/2023?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: and you have testified that this was after the postmortem
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: So, by the time you filled this out, there was a new piece of evidence in the case, the postmortem, right?
DB: yes, my Lord
EK: now, can you read what you wrote under “nature of crime”
DB: it was still reading the same as…

Mr Muwaganya interjects, “My Lord, we agreed; that’s already read and on the record.” He goes ahead to complain about what he considers repetition by the defense.

Mr Karuhanga is having none of that. He shoots back: “My Lord, I’m asking my questions in my own way. Mr Muwaganya shouldn’t worry, we are about to finish.”

Cont’d:
Mr Elison Karuhanga’s cross examination of PW24, Detective Sergeant David Beteise

EK to DB: I want to suggest to you that every single police form submitted to the directorate of forensic services was an illegal police form and what we have in this court is illegal… pic.twitter.com/uGPYNMnhng

— Anthony Natif (@TonyNatif) November 27, 2025