Buganda Road Court Chief Magistrate, Her Worship Sylvia Nabaggala has this Friday dismissed the criminal charges brought by the Save Our Soccer (SOS) group against FUFA President Lawrence Mulindwa, CEO Edgar Watson and the chairman of the Legal Committee, Mohammed Bazirengedde.
The Magistrate threw out the case on grounds of being incompetent and erroneously brought before court. The honourable court also noted that the charges against the three accused FUFA officials were inconsistent in law because FUFA wasn’t a public body. FUFA is a private entity limited by guarantee and as such, the three accused persons were not public officers within the meaning of the law.
SOS have always come out openly to express their interests in dragging Mulindwa to Luzira prison but this is the fourth court case the selfish group is losing in courts of law including the one against former FUFA president, the late Denis Obua. Mbidde Denis who filed the case run out of the court chambers before the final ruling after detecting likely embarrassment from the football fans who watched the proceedings. Aldrine Nsubuga and Fred Muwema did not even show up.
The Magistrate further ruled that the lawyers representing SOS had not obtained the mandatory permission from court before commencing with the private commercial prosecutions. And in absence of such permission, they were improperly before the court. She said, the complainant, Dennis Mbidde was an alien to FUFA since he was neither a member of FUFA nor a delegate. In this background, all the information he gave before court was hearsay and he couldn’t even prove the source of his information. Upon cross examination of the complainant (Mbidde Denis), he appeared contradictory of his sources of information.
All the above illegalities affected the validity of the case rendering the proceedings null and void. Court therefore dismissed the charges and cancelled the criminal summons earlier issued. FUFA was represented in court by lawyers Evans Ochieng, Alex Luganda and Ronald Bogezi. (Rogers Mulindwa, Head of communications-FUFA)
