Man to suffer death for murdering his two wives

By KIHEMBO WILBERT

KAMPALA. The Court of Appeal on Tuesday, upheld a death sentence earlier handed to a man who was found guilty of murdering his two wives using a machete in cold blood in one night.
Justices Remmy Kasule, Faith Mwondha and Richard Buteera, in a unanimous verdict, held that the then trial judge of Masaka High Court Musoke-Kibuuka, correctly handed Stephen Turyamwijuka a maximum punishment of death by hanging basing on justified circumstances.

The death row convict was found guilty of murdering his wives; Dinnah Kekigombe and Maria Bashabe on the night of May 26, 2005 in Masaka District. 
Turyamwijuka appealed against the death sentence on grounds that it was excess.
However, his appeal was not successful and court on Tuesday upheld that he should be killed by hanging.

“Considering the circumstances of the case, as the learned trial judge did, we do not find the sentence imposed to have been manifestly excessive or low as to amount to a miscarriage of justice. We do not find either, that the trial judge did not consider any facts or that the sentence was based on a wrong principle..” ruled the justices of the Court Appeal.

The justices further ruled: “ it was the maximum sentence provided by the law but it was justified in the circumstances of this case. The trial judge imposed the sentence in exercise of his well considered discretion in accordance with the law..”
“We do not find merit in this appeal and we accordingly dismiss it. We confirm both the conviction and sentence imposed by the High Court…” 
How the death row convict killed his two wives
Court records that this newspaper has seen indicate that on the fateful night at around 8pm, Mr Turyamwijuka came back home from Lwentulege Trading Centre. He asked his wife Kekigombe to give him his machete as he wanted to go to a neighboring Mpame Trading Centre.
His wife gave him a torch and a walking stick and he went away. At around 9pm, Mr Turyamwijuka returned and found his wife (Kekigombe) and children having supper. He joined them too.

Thereafter, Mr Turyamwijuka and his wife went to their bedroom while the children went to theirs.
At around 1am, the children heard their mother shouting for help saying her husband was killing her. The children ran outside while raising an alarm. His second wife Bashabe who was residing in nearby house, responded to the alarm. When she reached the doorway, her husband came out of the house with a stick and hit her. The second wife then ran away towards the nearby family banana plantation limping. Her husband then re-entered the house, came out with a machete and followed her.
The children got scared and ran and hid themselves in the second wife’s house until the following morning and there after alerted the LC.

When the LC and neighbors came, they found Kekigombe’s body in her bedroom with many cuts. The body of the second wife (Bashabe) was found in a pool of blood in the family banana plantations with several cuts.
Police was called in and a postmortem report revealed that each of the murdered wives died of severe hemorrhage as a result of wounds.
After Mr Turyamwijuka had killed his wives, he ran to Lyantonde Police where he handed himself to police with a machete and his chest was stained with blood. He was examined and found to be of sound mind.
He recorded a charge and caution statement and admitted to have killed both his wives and he was accordingly charged with murder and sentenced to death upon conviction.