By Baleke Solomon in Jinja

The Inspectorate of Government has arrested a Jinja Court Magistrate, Okwit Oditi on charges of receiving a bribe of Ushs 100,000 from a suspect he was supposed to try.

Relatives of the suspect one Ssembule Emmanuel who wanted justice to take its course because they believed he was innocent were shocked when the magistrate called them and asked for the money.

The relatives revealed that the Grade II magistrate working in the high court of Jinja had threatened he would lock up the suspect for years, if they failed to mobilise the money.
Ssembule had been charged theft under file number CRB/957/10 recorded at Jinja central police Station.

Ssembule's sister one Esther Naboline agreed with the magistrate (pictured above) that she could bring the money the day the suspect was to appear in court.

But in the process, a friend advised her to report the magistrate's desire for money to the Jinja Inspectorate of Government who also reported the matter to the CID headquarters who dispatched a sward of detectives to effect the arrest of the corrupt magistrate.

Dominique Baruku, the regional chief in the Inspectorate of Government, has confirmed the arrest saying that it was spearheaded by detectives ASP Orato Moses and Catherine Kusemererwa both from CID headquarters in Kampala where the arrested magistrate has been forwarded.

The two detectives arranged the trap, and after recording serial numbers from the notes, detective Catherine went together with the sister of the suspect to meet the magistrate for payment pretending that they were sisters and immediately he was arrested and the money was also recovered.

One of Okwit's colleagues who spoke to this reporter expressed shock that Okwit, hitherto regarded as a man of high repute would go as far as tarnishing his reputation with a mere Ushs 100,000 bribe. blog comments powered by Disqus

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