After spending a couple of days in prison on allegations of forging COVID-19 test result certificates, Buganda Road Chief Magistrate has today granted a non-cash bail of UGX 20m to three Makerere University officials.
The three Makerere employees who were remanded to Kitalya and Kigo prisons in Wakiso district reportedly issued negative COVID-19 results to people who had tested positive well knowing that their actions are likely to cause the spread of an infectious disease.
The officials include; Emmanuel Kawalya, a samples collector at Makerere University hospital, Gideon Nsubuga, a laboratory technologist/molecular biologist at Makerere University college of health sciences and Dafala Kezimbira, an information technologist also at college of Health Sciences.
The trio was set free after an audio-visual conferencing session presided over by Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu of Buganda Road Court, earlier today. More details indicate that each of the accused’s two sureties was bonded at UGX 10m.
The three were charged alongside Justine Nasonko, a businesswoman from Nasser road in Kampala. They are charged of engaging in actions that would lead to the spread of the deadly COVID-19 as well as forgery.
Shortly after granting them bail, Kamasanyu adjourned the matter to November 20th for further mention. Apparently, four more suspects on forgery are still on the run.
The Makerere officials released false COVID-19 test result certificates for four people indicating that they had been genuinely issued by the ministry of Health/Makerere University college of health sciences.
The negative certificates were allegedly issued to Al Noumani Muhammed Said Khaila, James Bernard Walusimbi, Irene Namubiru and Milliam Zawadi despite testing positive for COVID-19.