Unanswered questions after prison inmate dies

The last time Babirye Nisha talked to her husband on the evening of May 27 he sounded melancholic: he complained of starvation and severe beating inside Ngenge Prison in Kapchorwa District. During the conversation by telephone that lasted for about a minute she comforted him that all will be well.

“He asked that I send any money I had for buying some bites for he was very hungry,” Nisha recalled, adding: “I could hear noises in the background and a warder seemed to have grabbed the phone from him. I asked the warder on the line that why is it that you beat and starve inmates…but she just brushed me off saying my husband is a spoilt brat. Nonetheless I wired Shs38,000 on the line in the names of Nakiyingi. I come to think about; it it’s like I was paying a ransom.”

Later in the afternoon the next day, the telephone call she received turned her world upside down and likely forever. The caller, also from Ngenge Prison, told her to pick her husband’s body from Mbale City mortuary.

But how? “I had last spoken to him the previous evening and I even sent the money he requested for,” Nisha recalled the moment as the world around her started spinning fast.

She immediately informed her husband, Abdul Rahman Rasul’s immediate family members about the call and the message. They immediately rushed to the Mbale City mortuary and indeed her husband’s body was there.

“We have so many questions to this date but have never got any answers,” a teary Nisha told this newspaper from her shop in Mbale late last month. “We were just handed the body, post mortem had already been conducted which begs the question who exactly they consulted because I was listed as his next of kin.”

Nisha also handed a poorly hand scribbled post mortem report and death certificate signed off by one Dr Barnabas Rubanza.

“I went back to the mortuary to meet him but in vain. The people we found said bodies are brought to the mortuary so they also don’t have answers,” she added.

After burial she and the deceased’s relatives journeyed 60km to Ngenge Prison on Muyembe-Nakapiripirit Road to seek some answers but they almost regretted the trip. The insensitive-sounding prison authorities told the family that Rasul died of natural causes.

One warder, according to the family members, claimed the deceased choked on porridge and all attempts to resuscitate him at the prison infirmary failed.

Another warder told the family the deceased choked on drinking water, and died en route to the nearest health centre.

Unbeknownst to the warders, a well-wisher took the deceased’s photos shortly after death. The gory images, copies seen by this newspaper, detail what appear to be heavy torture marks, and his legs appear to have been broken.

During the Muslim ritual of Ghusl Mayyit—washing the deceased’s body by relatives—family members were horrified more; one of the deceased’s testicles had reportedly been crushed, and his tongue too, cut off.

The family believes Rasul’s death was a hit job inside Ngenge Prison.

Sibling rivalry

For Nisha, 37, more tormenting is that they took a bank loan to inject into her business. Attempts to get a repayment extension have proved futile because the bank requested for a death certificate issued by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). However, NIRA rejected the poorly scribbled post mortem report and death certificate, while Mbale City mortuary authorities keep tossing her.

But how did the sad episode begin? Her husband Abdul Rahman Rasul was just another ordinary citizen. A businessman, devoted husband, father of five daughters, and described generally around his community I Malukhu ward in Mbale City as a gentle-kind soul. He had never had any run-ins with the law either.

Yet, his death reads like a script for a murder mystery, or a crime thriller movie; a small altercation, a jumbled criminal trial, quick sentencing, and in less than three weeks he was dead in prison. Then, the finger pointing by officials and roadblocks met by his family in the desperate search for not just answers but justice as well.

The unnerving experience has left his family physically, emotionally, and financially distraught.

The episode started as a wrangle over family property, particularly between the deceased, opposed to the sale, and his young brother, Ali Rasul Skimbo. The said property scattered around Mbale City was bequeathed by their grandfather to their father. After their father’s death in 2001, their elder brother Abdul Rasul Salah was installed as the heir.

23 years later, both Abdul Rasul Salah, their elder brother and heir, and youngest brother in the family, Shuri Abdul Rashul, told Daily Monitor they are living in fear as a result of the squabbling over the property.

“You know as the youngest I wasn’t much involved in their feuds. But then when Rasul was sent to prison I started hearing stories, you know this is a small town that he was suffering a lot in Maluku. I brought it to the attention of our mother because is very close to Ali. But when mum asked Ali he just brushed off the claims,” Rashul narrated.

He added: “Ali has also promised to send me away. I don’t know what he means by that but he seems powerful around here. I was inclined to give him (Ali) the benefit of doubt but when he heard of our brother’s death he rather celebrated the news. He went to the bar and drank so much while saying his problems have been taken care of.”

This account is reinforced by his brother-in-law, Abdallah Aziz, and paternal aunt, Leilah Abdul-Rahaman.

“Any time Shuri or their elder brother Salah could be the next. Ali actually told Shuri that harming you doesn’t take a second because you are like a mosquito,” Ms Abdul-Rahaman said.

 She added: “Ali really harassed his brother using all sorts of means. Rasul was staying at one of their family property. Ali went there one time and disconnected the water and then cut the sewer pipes….and sewerage flooded all over the place all in the name of making them leave the house. When that failed he bribed the LC to evict his brother saying he didn’t have a right to live there.”

The escalation

The deceased’s widow narrated how the sibling rivalry unraveled on March 20, 2022 when her brother-in-law, Ali Rasul Skimbo severely beat her up causing severe bodily harm.

“I had gone to help out my sister in-law, their eldest brother (Salah)’s wife who was due to give birth. On the way I passed by my mother in-law but her actions made it clear that I was unwelcome there. I proceeded to where I was going. That is where Ali descended on me in a fit of rage and started beating up. Salah’s wife was heavily pregnant to intervene, and in the process I lost three teeth,” said Nisha.

She had notified her husband of her movements that afternoon. To her luck her husband had planned to join her at his eldest brother’s home where he found his wife being beaten.

She added: “I was all bloodied when my husband arrived. He separated his brother from me, and then a scuffle ensued between the two. Ali immediately rushed to police to report that I had assaulted my mother-law and that my husband had beaten him up. Police immediately picked up my husband and while in detention, he later told me that tried to force him to sign some papers….but it was in the dark in the cells which he refused. He suspected they were related to the family property for which papers they have forged to lay claim.”

A case of assault was reported at Mbale City police. To the family’s surprise, in no time Skimbo had been released on bond. The case ultimately went to trial, and on April 17, 2024, Skimbo was convicted in absentia of the offence of causing bodily harm contrary to Section 236 of the Penal Code Act.

Family members recall the Magistrate as saying that offence carried five years in prison. To their surprise, when the accused Skimbo turned up for sentencing two weeks later on April 29, 2024, the Magistrate changed goalposts reasoning that: “Court is mindful of the fact that the injuries inflicted on the complainant caused to spend in treatment for which she should be compensated although no receipts where (sic) presented in court to aid in assessment.”

“The convict has also made his plea for a non-custodial sentence by providing medical arms to highlight his medical condition i.e hypertension and diabetes that require special treatment.”

“Taking all the above into consideration, the court will not impose a custodial sentence to allow room for reconciliation. Taking into consideration the injuries sustained and expenses incurred by the complainant, a compensatory order is appropriate. The convict is hereby sentenced to compensation of Shs800,000, Shs700,000 of which shall be paid to the complainant and Shs100,000 be paid as fine to the government.”

DPP’s office responds

The DPPs office responded on May 14 acknowledging receipt of the complaint and asking the complainant to “forward the case papers to enable us to attend to the complaint.”

However, what happened next is a roll coaster of events. Rasul was re-arrested on an earlier charge of assaulting and occasioning bodily harm on Skimbo.

According to the family, Skimbo accused his elder brother of beating him up after chancing on each other at the site of one of the contested property back in March 2022. The case, the family maintains, was a tit-for-tat for Rasul to drop the assault case against Skimbo for beating Nisha.

The brother-to-brother assault case had clogged in the justice system, but in a twist of events the deceased was re-arrested.

Conversely, the deceased had earlier in March 2023 written to Mbale Magistrate’s court complaining about the unfairness of this trial at the Magistrate Grade Two court.

He wrote: “During the hearing one of the witnesses was not cross examined and despite prayer by the defense, his evidence was not expunged. Secondly, the police officer who is the investigating officer testified without statement or report.”

Betrayed by the justice system

The deceased further wrote: “Thirdly, I have since established that the complainant is a very close friend of the trial magistrate and the two have been cited at pavement pub on Nkonkonjeru Terrace and Sports Club. In the circumstances, I believe that the trial magistrate is compromised and cannot judiciously handle my case. I pray that the case suit be relocated to another trial magistrate for a fair trial.”

The family says Rasul was in the process of appealing the April 29 judgment of the assault case of beating his wife. He was, however, arrested for the assault of his young brother and remanded for 14 days.

After the 14 days, Rasul was sentenced by the Magistrate Grade Two court to six months in Maluku government prison in Mbale city. The Magistrate disregarded the deceased’s pleas that he was a first time offender or the argument that the matter could be handled amicably by family, which arguments were advanced in the assault case against his wife.

After barely a week in Maluku prison, the family learnt that Rasul was now being transferred to Ngenge Prison. Hardly three days after the transfer, was Nisha told that her husband was dead.

The Officer in Charge of Maluku prison, Maureen Niinsima, defended the transfer of Rasul as a routine to offer labour on the prison farm. She also brushed off claims of foul play in his death arguing that “inmates die every other time so his is not so special.”

“If they want they can go through court for exhumation of the body for a second post mortem but the cost will be on them,” Ms Ninsiima said.

We reached out to the Uganda Prisons spokesperson Frank Baine, who referred us to his deputy Moses Ssentalo who did not pick or return our repeated calls for comment on the matter.

According to both the handwritten post mortem report and death certificate, Rasul died of aspiration pneumonia and acute gastritis.

Daily Monitor subjected the post mortem for a secondary opinion by a pathologist in Kampala but they failed to read nor make sense of what was scribbled down.

Aspiration pneumonia, the medic explained, is a medical emergency usually fatal if not handled quickly; It simply means something foreign went into the lungs through the airway, could be in liquid form i.e water or juice or medication e.g syrups or porridge if the patient had a feeding tube inside that changed position, solid stuff e.g food, gas (carbonmonoxide) ,etc however, in the report they have not specified what exactly what the aspirant was. Once this foreign aspirant gets to the lungs it causes infection to the lungs hence pneumonia.

The second cause of death, which is gastritis (i.e the reddening, swelling and painful alimentary canal, usually up to the stomach) is due to lots of factors, could be medicines, infections, stress e.t.c

“Therefore the report is not very detailed, lots of things are missing to come up with the conclusive cause of death,” the pathologist noted on condition of anonymity.

But what then explains to severe bruises of beatings and torture on the deceased’s abdomen, broken legs and crashed testicle. The family have sought answers from numerous offices but they have been met by high walls of silence and finger pointing.

Inexplicably, Ngenge prison authorities told the family the marks on the legs are scratches from working in the cotton farm. But how could it be if the inmate hardly spent a week at the facility before his death.

Ngenge prison is synonymous with allegations of torture and death of inmates, some of which have been documented. 

The 37-year-old widow now has to raise five daughters on her own. For now, she and the family have been left to guess what exactly happened to their loved one.

The gory photographs taken of the body are a key puzzle in unraveling what exactly happened to him during his less than week stay at Ngenge prison. But that would require a second inquest through court under the Inquest’s Act — which means more financial and mental exhaustion.