Uganda: Anthony Natif Notes From Court - Uganda Vs Molly Katanga and Others July 16/2026 B

The last few weeks in the Katanga case have been about getting to the bottom of DNA evidence and its implications on understanding whether Mrs Molly Katanga and/or her deceased husband pulled the trigger that ended Mr Katanga's life on the morning of 2 November 2023.

The state, through the Director of Forensic Services at Uganda Police Andrew Kizimula Mubiru, presented their DNA evidence to a court presided over by Justice Isaac Muwata back in August 2024.

The state relied upon it to convince the current presiding judge, Rosette Comfort Kania, that Mrs Katanga had a case to answer because her DNA was found to be dominant on the pistol magazine, trigger and trigger house. She was put on her own defense. (See Frame 3)

Enter Defense Witness 4 (DW4), a British DNA forensics expert of some repute, with a career spanning 3 decades.

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She asked the judge to completely disregard the DNA evidence before her, arguing it's unreliable, born of a contaminated process, and even if it were perfect, it couldn't answer the question of who actually discharged that firearm.

Yesterday, under cross-examination by Assistant DPP Samali Wakooli, the expert and the prosecutor got into it a bit.

The issue at play was whether a subsequent swab of an already swabbed part of a gun would have sufficient DNA.

According to the expert, if the first swab had been thorough, the subsequent swab would find DNA so minimal as to be useless. The state seemed to disagree.

Why this is important:

You might recall that during his testimony, Mubiru told Justice Muwata that he, while in his lab, had personally swabbed the trigger and trigger house of the gun (2 distinct parts) with one swab and tested it for DNA.

He said he found Mrs Katanga's DNA dominant and her husband's the minor contributor. This finding fed into the state's argument in the no case to answer submissions.

A couple of issues arose: Mubiru told Justice Muwata that he used up the swab and had nothing to show court. No copies either.

He provided no proof that he swabbed the trigger and trigger house, except "Trust me, bro." He provided no explanation as to why he swabbed two distinct parts of the gun as if they were one.

Defence attorney Mac Dusman Kabega indicated to Justice Muwata that perhaps Mubiru didn't even swab this gun to begin with.

He said PW8 had a history of testing phantom (non-existent) samples, and for this, he brought out the case of Uganda Vs Kato Kajubi, where the Court of Appeal found that Mubiru tested a sample that he never received. (See Frame 4)

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Further complicating this issue was the testimony of the Scene of Crime Officer Emmanuel Olugu (PW20) who told Justice Rosette Kania that he recovered the gun from the couple's bed, performed safety manoeuvres on it and swabbed the trigger before onwards forwarding it to the laboratory for analysis.

It is unclear as to why the state did not use the SOCO's swab, which could have conceivably had more DNA than the subsequent swab.

SW: Aaaah, you also testified before this court that where a swab has been taken, it would be better to use the first swab

DW4: Yes

SW: Do you have evidence that one swab would be capable of wiping away DNA on an item?

DW4: it depends on the efficacy of that swabbing procedure. If the swabs were taken properly, the remaining DNA should be so extremely low, it's not giving you a representative result. (video in frame 1)

DW4 also went further and told Justice Kania that the fact that the gun was recovered from a bed shared by Mr and Mrs Katanga (frame 4) meant that the gun would reasonably be expected to have both their DNA, and it's impossible to tell the sequence in which DNA is deposited.

To channel DW4's famous countryman, Sir Winston Churchill, Justice Kania's court is faced with the DNA forensics equivalent of "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".

Mrs Katanga insists this is no mystery; "I was framed."

The court resumes Monday, 9 am