A suspect who pretended to suffer fits during a judgment,...

A suspect who pretended to suffer fits during a judgment, could not escape the gallows when he and two others were sentenced to death by the Uganda High Court for violent robbery.
Justice Julia Ssebutinde had read for three hours and ten minutes of her judgment that lasted four hours and fifteen minutes, when Martin Mwebaze began to tremble, gripped the dock, clung to it and looked up with deranged eyes. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
But the judge ordered the court orderlies to give him a seat in the dock as he awaited the verdict. Mwebaze, 21, a hawker at the Old Taxi Park, Isaaya Nyanzi, 33, a trader at Owino Market, and Patrick Mugisha, 30, a taxi conductor of Nateete, all in Kampala district, were advised by the court to appeal within 14 days from the judgement.
State Attorney David Ndamurani Ateenyi said the three, on February 21, 1999, raided a car dealer, Umar Katende, at Kawaala zone in Kampala, shot him in the leg three times and robbed him of sh580,000, a television set, a radio cassette, a disc player, a hand phone and other items.